Consistency has long been a classic guidepost for any restaurant operator—even as the industry rapidly evolves. Whether the operator runs a next-gen casual, quick-service, or full-service restaurant, the consistent flavor, texture, and appearance of menu items are non-negotiable. 

And when it comes to fried foods, handling the cooking oil properly plays a critical role in ensuring a consistent product that customers love.

“Properly managing cooking oil is essential to creating a consistent flavor experience with your fried foods,” says Brian Jordan, national account executive at Restaurant Technologies. “From our standpoint, that includes filtering it properly, testing it at the right intervals so that it isn’t being held too long, and making sure it’s not being changed too soon or allowed to have too much debris built up in it, which breaks it down at a faster rate.”

The process of frying battered and breaded products leaves particles behind in the oil, and that debris stays there without proper filtration. “As it goes up and down in temperature, you’re burning those pieces and creating bitterness,” says Michael Napoleon, senior product development research chef at Tastepoint. “So basically, all those particles are releasing that flavor into your oil. And that’s not good.” In fact, Restaurant Technologies has found that proper filtration can double the life of cooking oil.

With Restaurant Technologies’ Total Oil Management solution, restaurant operators can automate the entire cooking oil process—from storage and handling to filtration, monitoring, and disposal of used cooking oil. Manually filtering and monitoring oil puts restaurants at risk for serving lower-quality food during a rush or due to human error, but automation eliminates that possibility.

Oil is an ingredient like anything else, as Jordan says, and it must be treated with the same high level of care that other, more front-and-center ingredients receive. “You’d never sell a burger with a compromised ingredient in it, like wilted lettuce or a rotten tomato. So why would you want to sell French fries, chicken fingers, or any other fried foods that are cooked in a compromised ingredient like dirty oil?”

When oil management is automated, it’s clear that food consistency improves. “Restaurant brands that implement our system find that their customer satisfaction scores on the quality of fried foods increase because of the fact that oil is being managed properly,” Jordan says.

Carmelo Valenti, owner of Roman Delight in northeast Pennsylvania, credits Restaurant Technologies’ Total Oil Management with boosting the consistency of his restaurant’s food quality. “We’re high-volume, and [Total Oil] has made it easier for us to be able to change fryer oil more frequently during the day. The food is 100 times more consistent,” Valenti says. “As an example, we have a great breaded haddock dish. Before, it wasn’t always so great when the oil got old, which can happen in a minute during a rush. Now we can maintain the quality of the product.”

With more than 36,000 customers and a 98 percent retention rate nationwide, Restaurant Technologies’ Total Oil Management prides itself on being a “smarter, safer, and sustainable” solution to automated oil management. 

To learn more, visit Restaurant Technologies’ website.