With Cost Savings Like This, TGI Fridays Could Shout Out TGFOB! (Thank God for Orwak Balers)

The Situation - More Business, More Waste

Strategic Restaurant Group (SRG), owner of several TGI Friday’s® restaurants in Florida, Pennsylvania and New York, was faced with a common dilemma shared by many successful restaurants - high customer turnover means more waste.  Unfortunately, managing waste was consuming valuable staff time and haulage costs were significant. SRG was looking for a solution that would increase efficiency, reduce removal costs and build on the company’s sustainability efforts. Thank God they found Orwak balers and compactors.

The Concerns: High Waste Removal Costs, Lost Time & Safety

For each of its restaurants, SRG was paying $600-$1,200 per month for trash haulage and $170-$350 for cardboard removal. Besides costs, SRG’s top concerns were time management and safety:  Kitchen workers were spending a considerable amount of time going in an out the back door to the dumpsters, often at night. Steve Grossman, CFO at SRG, was looking for a solution that would make more economic sense, help keep the facilities safe and clean and reduce the number of trips outside.

SRG also needed a solution that would compact and bale cardboard boxes for easy removal and pickup. Each week, the average TGI Friday’s receives 30-50 cardboard boxes with food and beverage deliveries. With numbers like that, the space problems easily stack up.

The Solution: A Small Footprint Trash Compactor and a Small Footprint Cardboard Baler

Steve found the answer to his trash concerns in the Orwak 5030 trash compactor, a small-footprint, single phase machine that takes up less than nine square feet of floor space inside a restaurant kitchen or utility area.

The top-loading machine allows employees to compact 10 bags into one, eliminating the need for them to leave the building multiple times to take out individual bags of trash. The Orwak 5030 trash compactor also lead to less visits by garbage trucks which translated into lower CO₂ emissions, a quieter premises and less wear and tear on asphalt surfaces.

The Orwak 3110 machine, a front-loading, single-phase baler, has an even smaller footprint (6 square feet) and offers a 7 to 1 compaction ratio, adjustable bale heights and an autostart feature for efficient compaction. The Orwak 3110 bales cardboard into stackable bales for easy storage and pick-up. 

TGFOB!

Grossman is pleased with the cost savings he’s achieved. Because the trash is compacted, the restaurants went from three or four garbage pickups per week down to two. This reduced trash pickup costs by 40-50%. The savings on cardboard removal was even more compelling: Orwak arranged for a recycling processor to pick up the cardboard at a greatly reduced rate, just once a week compared with 2-3 days per week before. Some restaurants even receive a rebate for the material!

“In addition to the cost savings, our employees can now spend more time serving customers,” says Grossman. “During our busiest times, our employees can compact waste instead of carrying it outside. We estimate that on each shift, we’ve gained back 40 minutes of time that our team would have spent moving trash and cardboard outside. It has also lead to a safer work environment for our night shift employees.” 

Considering an Orwak Baler for Your Restaurant?

With zero down for 21 days, now is the time to see what an Orwak baler can do for you.

Get started by reaching out to our experienced team of waste reduction experts for a quick assessment that could lead to a decade of savings!