Filta Environmental Kitchen Solutions Braces for Tsunami of Business as Pandemic Lockdowns Lift Nationwide

“It’s critical that we staff up in the right way to get ahead of the tsunami of business that’s already begun nationwide,” said Tom Dunn, CEO of Filta.

ORLANDO, Fla. (PRWEB)
June 07, 2021

Filta Environmental Kitchen Solutions (Filta), the world’s restaurant kitchen and hospitality leader in active fryer management and environmental sustainability, is bracing for a tsunami of business as pandemic lockdowns lift nationwide and businesses open.

Coast to coast, sporting and concert venues are opening, large businesses are welcoming employees back to on site cafeterias, and colleges, universities and restaurants are opening at a rapid pace. Filta helps these types of commercial kitchens save money with its proprietary micro-filtration and fryer management process, extending the life of oil by micro-filtering instead of dumping it. The company also saves labor costs when a Filta technician does the fryer oil work, rather than an employee. Further, Filta helps the environment by reducing packaging costs and recycling oil that has reached the end of its useful life, ensuring it is converted into biodiesel.

“While our hospital, grocery store and take out restaurant customers never closed or altered their service schedules, large venues like stadiums and arenas hit the pause button when the pandemic quarantines occurred,” said Tom Dunn, CEO of Filta. “When that happened we pivoted and started offering FiltaShield, an EPA-registered disinfectant and sanitization service, but now that things are beginning to open up, our network is challenged with servicing their former customers as they come back online as well as new clients. So at the corporate level it’s a priority to help franchisees with recruiting and staffing.”

The Orlando-based franchisor is using all the employee recruitment tools at its disposal to support its franchisee network and has developed ads in both Spanish and English while also vetting and scheduling interviews for potential employees. Additionally, the corporate office helps franchisees reach out to local churches and other community organizations to further develop a pool of qualified candidates for its technician staff.

“It’s critical that we staff up in the right way to get ahead of the tsunami of business that’s already begun nationwide,” Dunn said. “Commercial kitchens are opening up and opening up big because people are anxious to get back to ‘normal.’ Stadiums and restaurants are already opening at various capacities, depending on the state, and our goal is to help our franchisees anticipate and wisely navigate the delicate balancing act of adding staff and equipment to meet customer needs and provide high levels of service.”

In the mid-Atlantic region, Philadelphia-area Filta Owner Allen Whitehead is definitely seeing the return of various market segments post-pandemic, including stadiums. He recently landed Wells Fargo Center and Citizens Bank Park as new clients in addition to the Eagles’ stadium, Lincoln Financial Field which he’s serviced for eight years, and a myriad of hospitals, universities and businesses like Boeing’s cafeterias and the Prepared Foods department of all area Whole Foods stores he services.

“For the last five to six months I’ve been working to increase staff,” Whitehead said. “We need at least five more technicians to meet the demand I anticipate.”

It’s a similar story to the west in Denver, where Hugh Roberts, a new franchisee in the Filta system, and his business partner, Damon Wanco, quadrupled their customers from February to April. Their team services the 67 fryers in Coors Stadium as well as those in Ball Arena and Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. Also on their roster are businesses like Charles Schwab, Molson Coors, two Dish Network facilities and, with the upcoming concert season, they’ll start at Red Rocks Amphitheater. The Denver franchise just added an additional van to service the increased business and is hiring staff as fast as they can.

In the Midwest, Adam Weisbeck’s Minneapolis – St. Paul franchise services all eight stadiums in the Twin Cities, which are slowly bringing back fans. He also has significant business from a group of 15 Dairy Queens in the area and other restaurants, corporate cafeterias like 3M, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and healthcare facilities like the Mayo Clinic and other hospitals.

“I’m already receiving calls to ramp up service over the next few months. Much of my business has snapped back and I expect another surge in June and July,” Weisbeck said. “I brought back my furloughed operations manager and we’re aggressively recruiting more technicians. The kitchens understand though, they’re looking for labor as well.”

In the Southeast on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Rick Clark had more than 100 customers pre-pandemic but business was affected when the schools he serviced closed. The bedrock of his business is the 25 or so hospitals he services, about 12 of which are in the HCA network. The hospitals all remained open, but out of an abundance of caution cafeterias were only serving staff and patients, not visitors.

“We remained profitable, but had to be a little creative,” Clark said. “I’m hearing that universities will be back online and back to normal in the fall. And baseball is back – we filtered at the six stadiums that welcomed fans for spring training. We know that everything’s coming back quickly, we just need to be prepared for it.”

At the corporate level, Filta is seeing national accounts resume business as usual too.

“We recently entered into a national agreement with Guckenheimer, a leading company which runs kitchens in corporate dining locations nationwide,” Dunn said. “We then funnel these national accounts to our franchisees in individual markets. Currently, our teams work in 25 locations including Barclays in New Jersey and Las Vegas, Mars in Pennsylvania and Chicago, Lego in Connecticut, and Burbank Studios Café in Los Angeles.”

Filta makes commercial kitchens safer, more efficient and more environmentally sustainable by micro-filtering existing cooking oil, providing bin-free waste oil collection, deep cleaning fryers, and recycling waste oil. Customers range from single and chain restaurants to commercial kitchens inside casinos, hospitals, hotels, groceries, universities, business facilities, stadiums (NFL, NCAA, MLB, NHL), and more. Filta has recycled nearly 1 billion pounds of used cooking oil into biodiesel, significantly reducing the impact of fryer oil on the environment. For every gallon of biodiesel put into use, Filta prevents 16 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

About Filta Environmental Kitchen Solutions

Since its inception in 1996, Filta has positioned itself as the pioneering leader of active fryer management and environmental kitchen sustainability across the food and hospitality industries. Filta is the U.S. franchise system of United Kingdom-based Filta Group Holdings PLC (AIM: FLTA). The cornerstone of the company’s offering is FiltaFry, the complete fryer management service incorporating on-site micro-filtration as well as the removal, recycling and replacement of cooking oil. Furthermore, the brand provides humidity control in cold storage devices through FiltaCool and prevents drain blockage through its grease-free drain foam brand FiltaDrain, making it a recognized environmental leader in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Visit http://www.gofilta.com for more information and http://www.filtafranchise.com for franchise development opportunities.

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