Copyright (c) 2010 Morel Hudson

With constant pressure on profits in the hospitality industry from so many cost pressure points such as increasing lease costs, energy costs, staff costs, compliance costs, taxes and of course increasing competition the purchasing decisions on catering equipment becomes more and more important.

Thinking through the specific needs of your establishment and then matching those needs with the vast array of available catering equipment from so many manufacturers is not an easy task. Moreover, given the financial pitfalls of making poor purchasing decisions by choosing the wrong piece of equipment that isn't going to match your situation perfectly means that identifying all of your equipment requirements prior to purchasing is a critical and time consuming process.

Issues like brand reputation, service agreements, noise of operation, speed of output, ease of use, energy consumption and environmental factors are all issues today that should be considered. Hence, sustainability is probably the buzzword today in the purchasing of catering equipment.

We all know that costs are rising everywhere and the one item that is rising rapidly is the cost of energy. And the more you can save in this area the more of your hard earned revenues you'll get to keep. Hence, manufacturers today all have energy ratings systems and you'll be faced with the dilemma of the front-end higher investment expense in order to realize operational profits through lower running costs and hence saving.

Operational costs savings usually come from the lower electricity usage, lower water usage, lower chemical usage, less staff handling requirements, quicker operational speed allowing for more frequent usage and so on. These all provide multiplier effects into your business from lower costs to improved productivity to higher sales revenues.

Increasingly you'll need to invest important time and cash into buying new equipment and having a relationship with a well-experienced supplier could save you thousands of dollars. There are many suppliers however some suppliers do specialise in certain types of equipment whilst others are general suppliers. You might want to check out a couple of new equipment suppliers and compare these to some 2nd hand equipment suppliers and even look at the custom design suppliers. It's a time consuming and exhausting process however necessary particularly of your fitting out a new kitchen, however, if you're after a simple single piece of equipment a few phone calls, a Google search and or an Ebay search might suffice.

Therefore, be careful to make sure you know precisely what you need your equipment to do and find the equipment that actually can meet your standards. Do not rush your decision. It's to important and to expensive for that matter. And yes it can be complicated as manufacturers constantly develop new products with new designs, new features and new ideas that don't always work. You need to identify whether it's the old tried and tested workhorse machine that has served the industry for years or whether in fact there is a better alternative that provides you with lower running costs and hopefully is more environmentally friendly.