Thanks to new, supplementary services, franchise company Filta has evolved in recent years from providing fryer management services only to delivering full-service sustainability solutions for commercial kitchens. As of now, the Fit-A-Seal GmbH on-site manufacture and direct replacement of refrigeration seals are among these services. Filta Group acquired the company in January of this year. Filta franchise partners have been able to offer their customers this sealing service for a few years now.
Seals replaced quickly
Among many others, restaurants, supermarkets and hospitals use refrigerators, freezers and cold-storage rooms. Their seals must be inspected regularly, and damaged ones immediately replaced. Malfunctioning or dirty seals:
- Reduce the efficiency of the refrigerators
- Unnecessarily increase energy or operating costs
- May inadvertently violate health and food safety regulations in terms of food hygiene
- Are a source of pathogens and mould
If refrigeration or cold storage seals are defective or worn down, it normally takes weeks to replace them. This unnecessarily wastes energy and increases the health risk. The mobile Filta service for catering, food retail and industry on the other hand, manufactures new seals on site in its mobile workshop vans and fits them immediately. This all happens within a maximum time period of 10 days.
Operating nationwide
Many more customers like Kochlöffel GmbH value Filta’s unique mobile service. For the past eighteen months, Filta has been inspecting refrigeration seals and arranging their replacement within days in over 80 Kochlöffel restaurants across the country.
“When we learn that a refrigeration seal in one of our restaurants is defective or has to be replaced due to hygiene and safety regulations, we are relieved that thanks to Filta, we no longer have to wait several weeks in order get replacement seals installed directly on site”, says Patrick Lager, Head of Division, Building & Technology at Kochlöffel GmbH. “Just one phone call, and the seals are already replaced a few days later.”
Perfect seals contribute to climate protection
Domino’s Pizza has also been offering cooperation with Filta’s sealing service to its franchise partners for the past two years.
“Thanks to Filta’s sealing service, defective and worn down seals of refrigerators and other refrigeration systems in our outlets can be replaced quickly and simply”, says Thomas Winkler, Operations Innovation Manager at Domino’s Pizza Deutschland GmbH. “For us, always having perfect seals means that we don’t use energy unnecessarily, we can rest assured in the event of an inspection and what’s more, we can make a contribution to climate protection as part of our sustainability strategy.”
Goal: Global player for sealing services and more
The acquisition will facilitate a speedy expansion of the sealing service. “With additional service vehicles and staff, we want to service more nationally-operating restaurants and grocery chains, while remaining service partners for smaller or regional customers”, says Filta Deutschland Managing Director, Jos van Aalst. “Like in the UK, where Filta is responsible for the rapid replacement of refrigeration seals in more than 3,000 Tesco supermarkets, we have set ourselves the goal of becoming a global player in the sealing services sector that we can supplement with numerous other sustainability services.” These include:
- mobile fryer cleaning including the filtering of frying oil, delivery and collection of frying oil,
- chemical-free drain cleaning,
- automated cleaning of extraction ducts,
- state-of-the-art grease separation with the new FiltaFOG Cyclone.
The sealing service received the 2019 German Excellence Award in the Start-ups category for its high sustainability impact.
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