August 11, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, Jeremy Julian and guest Ron Cardwell from Restaurant Technologies Incorporated discuss the importance of cooking oil in the restaurant industry. Ron, the Director of Commodity Strategy, explains how their oil management system can help restaurants deliver the best guest experience through effective oil handling practices. They also delve into the types of oils used by restaurants, the factors affecting oil performance, and the importance of proper oil management for safety and sustainability. Tune in to learn how to maximize oil usage, manage costs, and ensure the quality and consistency of your restaurant's food.
00:00 RTI Inc
00:14 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:45 Role and Responsibilities at Restaurant Technologies
03:01 Sustainability Efforts and Environmental Impact
06:01 Understanding Cooking Oils in Restaurants
10:00 Oil Management and Performance
14:30 Economic Considerations of Different Oils
19:24 The Finite Supply of Beef Tallow
20:18 Challenges with Peanut Oil Supply
20:56 Consistency and Performance in Cooking Oils
22:08 Educating Restaurants on Oil Management
25:30 The Importance of Proper Oil Handling
26:57 Safety Concerns in Oil Management
28:23 Choosing the Right Oil Supplier
32:39 How to Connect with Restaurant Technologies
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, I am joinedby Ron Cardwell from Restaurant
Technologies Incorporated.
Uh, uh, you're listening to theshow and so you might think
(00:22):
restaurant technology isincorporated and restaurant
technology.
Guys, no real affiliation otherthan they've been a great
supporter of the show for thelast few years, and they've got
a really amazing oil managementsystem.
He and I dig into the world of.
Oil and why oil is so criticalto delivering the best guest
experience, how technology playsa part in it, how you can
continue to buy great productsto deliver the guest experience.
(00:46):
Um, if you don't know me, myname is Jeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS North Star.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution to multi-units.
Check us out@cbsnorthstar.comand now onto our show.
Jeremy Julian (00:59):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
As I say, each and every time.
I know you guys have got lots ofchoices, so thanks for hanging
out.
today we are joined.
Same company's been on, I thinkthis is their third, maybe
fourth show.
But I've got somebody comingfrom a different angle.
And so, and longtime listenerswill have heard RTI or
Restaurant TechnologiesIncorporated, as advertisers as
(01:21):
well on the show'cause I've gota good, uh, relationship with
one of Ron's business partnerson, uh, the inside on the
marketing side.
But Ron, why don't you introduceyourself a little bit, kind of
what do you get to do at,restaurant technologies and we
always tease every time I have aguest on.
Restaurant technology guys hasthe restaurant technologies
incorporated people on andpeople are like, who the hell is
who?
uh, but tell people a little bitabout who you are and then we
(01:42):
can talk, about kind of the pathgoing down.
Ron Cardwell (01:44):
Sure thing.
Thank you very much.
So my name's Ron Cardwell.
I'm the director of CommodityStrategy for Restaurant
Technologies.
What does that mean?
That just means I look overeverything oil related with the
company.
So we do two things with ourcompany.
We supply fresh cooking oil torestaurants, but we also take
away that used cooking oil.
So I just look over the riskstrategies of both of our used
cooking oil and how it makes itto the renewable fuel sector,
(02:05):
and then also helping do someadvising on the fresh oil side.
My history, I spent 22 yearswith one of the large
agribusiness companies all ofthat time in the oil sector.
So it was all dealing with allthe food companies we know, plus
restaurants and all thosethings, as well as working in
the biofuel space.
So I try to help a little bitwith our sales group and
(02:26):
informational group, uh, orinformation for our sales group
rather.
About oil quality, oil uses,things like that, just from my
background of working in thefood side as well.
But I'm the resident oil nerd, Iguess you can say, and I'm, uh,
one of those weird people whoreally love talking about it.
So, um, it's always realpleasure for me to get to talk
about that sort of thing withanybody who wants to listen to
(02:46):
it.
Jeremy Julian (02:47):
I think I need to get you business cards that say
oil nerd instead of director ofcommodity strategy for oil,
Ron Cardwell (02:53):
it'd be better.
Um, you know, I'm not the mostpopular guy at the cocktail
party, so these podcasts arewhat I live for.
Right.
Just lemme.
Jeremy Julian (03:00):
I love it.
Um, real quick before we jumpinto the state of the oil
industry, I know that you guyspublish a study every year, and
I'd love to just remind ourlisteners that might have missed
kind of where you guys are at.
You know, you talk aboutrecycling a lot of what you guys
do, and one of the things thatmakes me proud to have you guys
on the show as often as I do,is, is not only are you guys
trying to do what's best for.
(03:20):
you know, the end user to getthe right product into
restaurants so that they can getgood product, but you guys also
try and take care of theenvironment.
So I'd love to talk, have youtalked just a little bit before
we jump into kind of themajority of our topics for today
on how and why is that such animportant premise for your guys'
Ron Cardwell (03:36):
Yeah.
Well thank you for letting mespeak about that.
'cause it's one of my most, myfavorite things about our
company is we really close thiscircle of sustainability.
We really do.
Um, so a as many know that wedeliver that fresh oil to the
restaurants and we take away UCOor used cooking oil from the
restaurants.
And we do that as a service, butalso to help provide value to
the restaurants that we're,we're servicing, right?
(03:57):
So we take that used cookingwhile we sell it.
To the renewable dieselmanufacturer.
So they take all that usedfrying oil and they make diesel
fuel out of it, right?
And it goes, it feeds right intothe diesel pool of all these
service stations that you see upand down the highways, right?
They're all blended withbiodiesel or renewable diesel.
So we make sure we get everydrop of that used cooking oil to
(04:19):
that renewable fuelmanufacturer.
And last year, I don't know theexact number, just shy of 400
million pounds.
Of used cooking oil we put intothe renewable fuel sector, and
we'll continue to grow everyyear with it.
Um, what's great about us is weonly take back used cooking oil
that we supplied the original,fresh oil for, right?
So we have full traceability.
(04:40):
So everybody has real confidencein the sustainability of what we
are providing.
no, uh, no fake oil, no, virginoil, making it into the stream
or anything like that.
So we're very proud of that andsomething that.
we work really hard to make surewe can maintain what does that
mean for the restaurants?
We get the best value for thatUCO too, and we help pass that
on to our customers.
(05:01):
It's core to what we do.
It's not just us keeping all themoney.
Right.
we share it with everyone acrossthe board.
So the more value we get for it,the more that goes back to those
restaurants.
Jeremy Julian (05:10):
No, and I, and uh, part of what I said is I'm
proud to partner with you guys'cause I just love that you guys
have that sustainability effort.
and really, yeah, at least fromwhat I understand, the
alternative is throwing it awayor, or storing it in the storing
can get behind the, I mean,there's so many bad alternatives
for the world that not only arebad financially, but just bad o
overall.
Is
Ron Cardwell (05:30):
That's very fair to say.
Um, I mean, you have a lot ofcompanies who try to, collect
that stuff from the nastydumpsters in the back of the
stores and you don't know whatgets in there.
But worse than that is the,whatever volume is in those open
container dumpsters back there,not all of it is actually gonna
be used because it's gets.
it kind of gets dirty and itgets things inside that just has
to be thrown away whetherthey're trying to recycle it or
(05:52):
not.
So a hundred percent of what wetake in will make it to that
renewable fuels production.
So it's sustainable and reliablefor sure.
Jeremy Julian (06:01):
Love that.
Um, so Ron, talk to me a littlebit about cooking oil.
as an amateur cook myself, I dohave a couple of different
kinds, but they're, you know,it's not at the levels anywhere
close to what restaurants are.
And I know that even in my ownworld, and I tell this story
when people will listen to me,where we had a customer that was
having a problem with their,not, wasn't a problem with their
(06:21):
cooking oil.
Their cooking oil was great.
The type of cooking oil wascausing some issues in their
kitchen, and so they had toevaluate is peanut oil or canola
oil, whatever it was that theywere cooking with.
It was changing the molecular,uh, complexion of, of things
that were going on.
And so I, I don't realize itbecause I'm just a dumb consumer
and I.
You know, I'm a home cook andit's like, you know, you've got
(06:41):
a little bit of olive oil, yougot a little bit of canola oil,
you got a little bit avocado,avocado oil, but there's so many
different kinds out there.
So from a pure restaurantperspective, talk to me a little
bit about where is the gamut andhow much of that are you guys
selling?
What does it all
Ron Cardwell (06:53):
Sure.
Well, I, it's easy for you tohave that confusion.
I think most of us that cook athome.
You know, we just use a littlebit of oil in our cooking.
Maybe some sauteing, very few ofus actually deep fry at home,
right?
So we don't do it.
But deep frying is really harshon your oil and it really breaks
things down.
So when you go to a commercialkitchen, I think we overlook how
important that oil is to gettinggood quality food out.
(07:15):
'cause we don't really do it athome, right?
So what you have in the US is,you've got, most of the oil used
in restaurants is soybean oil.
That's just.
It's a function of supply andprice, right?
It's predominantly by two thirdsthe most popular oil.
Next.
Below that, you have canola oil,and then you'll have, corn oil,
and then there's all kinds ofblends of other oil in there.
(07:37):
Now these are, cotton seed oilor peanut oil, as you mentioned,
or things like that.
There's three factors in thoseoils that makes a restaurant
decide what to do, and that'sthe flavor of the oil.
It's the performance of the oil,and it's the price of the oil.
And every restaurant has acombination of those three
factors to figure out what worksbest for them.
(07:59):
So it's gonna be very differentfor every restaurant, what they
get and what they do.
But what isn't different is howthey handle that oil and how it
performs in their food and intheir kitchen to become safe and
just make good food.
Jeremy Julian (08:14):
Yeah, no, and I, and I think everybody kind of
gets the taste, you know, the,the flavor profile.
But even in that, Ron, I'd lovefor you to talk a little bit,
because if I'm frying, fish, I'mfrying fish in an oil versus
frying chicken.
Versus frying french fries inthat same oil, you're going to
have different flavor profilesthat are gonna come through.
And so flavor is obviously, youknow, you put it at number one
(08:34):
and it is a critical piece, butI think even as people are
considering LTOs and consideringnew products out to market, they
need to identify how am I gonnacook this on a consistent basis
to ensure that the product Ialready have in house is gonna
fulfill
Ron Cardwell (08:47):
Yeah.
And it's, it's the primaryconcern of the chef or whoever's
making the menu in therestaurant is, how is my food
gonna taste when it comes out?
So some oils, your soybean oiland canola oil, for instance,
the reason they're the mostpopular, I, I mentioned they're
most, most in supply or they,their price competitiveness, but
they provide a neutral flavor.
To food.
Okay?
So most of the time, unless theoil is bad, but in fresh oil,
(09:11):
most of the time you're gonnacome out with food that tastes
like the food, like it tastesyour fish is gonna taste like
the fish, or your fries aregonna taste like the fries.
And that's because the oilprovides a neutral flavor.
But there are oils that impartflavor to it, right?
So peanut oil, the reason it'sso popular with some restaurants
and some consumers.
Is it?
'cause it adds a flavor to thefood, right?
(09:32):
And that's the same, same can besaid for corn oil or a few other
oils, beef tallow, those thingsimpart a flavor to the food.
Is that good or bad?
Ask the chef.
That's what matters is, is, isthat flavor what you're going
for?
Is it adding to your food or isit something that you wanna stay
away from?
And so that's kind of the firstflavor question to ask is, do
(09:54):
you wanna taste just the food ordo you wanna add flavor to the
food?
Through the oil.
Jeremy Julian (10:00):
Yeah.
Well, and I think, uh, acrossthe board, I also think, you
know, we'll talk aboutperformance here in a second and
then we'll get to price,'causethose were your, your second and
third pillars.
But even from a longevityperspective, peanut oil is great
if you guys maintain it well,and I know that's part of what
you guys do.
And I think across the board,all of the oils that you talk
about.
The chef is going to taste itwhen the oil's brand new, fresh,
(10:23):
the fryer's, brand new andfresh, they're gonna test it in
the test kitchen, not after50,000 batches of, chicken
tenders have fried in that.
So I think that also is a keycomponent to ensure not only
that you've got the rightproduct in there, but that it
stands up over
Ron Cardwell (10:37):
that's right.
You know, one of the things I,I, I probably get the most flack
for when we talk about theseoils things is one of my answers
is always, it depends, right?
Because a lot of people ask me,what's the best for this?
Or how do you do this?
And I always say, it depends.
One thing that does not dependon anything is how you handle
your oil.
That is a constant.
You always wanna make sure it isfiltered and you always wanna
(10:59):
make sure it's at the righttemperature and you wanna make
sure it's changed at the righttime.
It doesn't matter what oilyou're using.
Those three things have tomatter.
So why do they matter?
Alright, let's talk aboutfiltering for a second.
When you put food in oil, if.
Anything falls off that food,whether it's bat thick,
battered, or crumbs from thefood or anything like that, it
(11:19):
falls into that oil well, whenyou pull the food out, all those
crumbs are still in there andthey're still in there frying
away.
And as they fry away, theycreate volatile compounds in
that oil that make it degradefaster and faster.
And it's kind of, um, it's kindof an exponential de
degradation, right?
It's not just straight line.
It kind of goes, really curvesup is the longer it's in there,
(11:40):
the faster that oil degrades.
So you wanna take out thosecrumbs and those filter those
particles out of the oil to stopthe degradation, right?
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is gonna bemaking sure it's at the right
temperature.
If your oil is at 425 degrees,which is way hot, that heat.
Allows oxygen to get into theoil and oxygen is what breaks it
(12:04):
down and gets bad flavor.
So again, it's going to degradefaster and faster.
Now there's some, obviously somespace for the temperature and
that's gonna be up to the chefand the food you're frying.
But you wanna make sure you haveit at the right temperature all
the time and you turn it offwhen you're not using it, so
you're not heating itunnecessarily.
Right.
So those are things that willdegrade the oil for sure.
(12:25):
Lastly, if the oil startsgetting all flavors or you get
smoke in it, or you have justbad tasting food, if you taste
it and it tastes bad, it's toolate.
It's gone.
It's gone out the, it's alreadygone out the kitchen door.
So you need to watch itconsistently to say, all right,
is it time to change it?
And don't second guess yourself,change it, right?
(12:46):
But you want to change it asoften if you filter it properly,
and if you keep the righttemperature on there.
So those are the things thatreally.
Really break down an oil nomatter which one you use, right?
Jeremy Julian (12:57):
Well, and the funny part is, is uh, uh, you
know, I joke about being anamateur chef.
You know, like a lot of peopleat COVID, I found the recipe for
the Disney, um, churros anddecided to fry some churros at
home.
You know, if anybody remembersthose from 2020, I was like,
dude, I gotta try these churrosat home.
They were fantastic, but the oilwas ranted by the end of the by,
because I have four kids andeverybody wanted them, and then
they kept.
I'm like, dude, I can't keepfrying these things.
(13:18):
'cause to your point, stufffalls on the bottom of'em and,
and you know, it just, it endsup, uh, that ends up being
something.
And I think all too few people,if they don't have a good oil
management system, which I,again, I know that that's what
you guys do, end up knowing thatthis is.
you gotta change it this oftenand you gotta filter it this
way.
So, and I, again, even on that,I think you guys even have a
realtime filtering processthat's not just, lemme scoop the
(13:41):
bot, you know, scoop the littlebits out of the bottom of that.
And so I'll let you sell alittle bit on your guys'
realtime filtering tool that youguys do sell to, to
Ron Cardwell (13:48):
Yeah, we call the total oil management system, so
it's not just about deliveringoil.
when you need it and taking awaythe used cooking oil, it, it's
really about how you handle thatoil while it's in the fryer.
We want you to use that oil aslong as you can and turn out the
best food you can.
So we have a filtering processand we, we actually teach the
restaurant staff when we do aninstallation.
We tell them how to use thatfiltering process, how often to
(14:10):
filter and what to watch for.
Um, but yeah, it, it is, it'sbuilt in and you just.
you put it through a screen andyou filter it properly.
Can reuse that oil a couple oftimes depending on, on what
you're doing.
But we educate definitely therestaurant staff on how to do
that.
It just lengthens the time thatyou can use that oil.
Jeremy Julian (14:27):
Which I think goes back to, talk to me a
little bit about performance.
You talked about that being kindof a second pillar when you're,
you're doing, what does thateven mean?
and again, I think, you know,there's, there's the quality of
it.
And again, going back to my homecook days, like, oh, I go buy
the more expensive one.
In theory, I would hope thatit's gonna taste better and it's
gonna last longer, but maybenot.
I, I'd love to, to have youspeak to kind of what does even
performance
Ron Cardwell (14:47):
I think performances might be the, might
be the, the one quality that'sasked about most when we talk to
our, our restaurants.
it's really how long does thatoil hold up?
In other words, how many, howoften am I have to change it
because that leads to highercost, right?
If you are using more oil thanyou have to, it's more
expensive.
It doesn't matter what.
Per unit cost is, so performanceis gonna come by.
(15:07):
Here's where he gets to me.
It depends on what you'recooking, right?
So you can have a, a fryerthat's gonna cook french fries,
non battered, normal frenchfries.
You can have another fryer withthe same oil, the same
temperature that's cookingbreaded chicken, right?
And those two oils will breakdown.
At different rates and it reallyhas to do with what you're
(15:28):
cooking in there.
Moisture content, things likebatter, as I mentioned, those
sort of things.
So you want an oil that's goingto perform for what you are
going to be cooking in.
Now, some restaurants have awide variety of things that go
in, in the fryers.
Some separate the fryers basedupon what's going in, right, um,
for different reasons.
But you want to know what isgoing in that fryer and what
(15:49):
kind of performance can youexpect to get out of the oil in
there.
so that's the number, that's thereason performance matters.
So now what, what leads tobetter performance?
It has to do with the stabilityof the oil.
And when I say stability, Imean, how does it hold up under
those hot conditions of a fryer?
Things like soybean oil andcanola oil are great.
(16:10):
All purpose oils, they reallyare, but they don't hold up
against something like a solidfat tallow, right?
The thing that's a big solidblock that goes in there.
So why don't they hold up aswell?
Well, soybean and canola have alot of unsaturated fats and
unsaturated fats.
If I don't want to get into a,um, a food chemistry course
here, but essentially they haveno double bonds in their
(16:34):
molecular structure.
And without those double bonds,they break away and they become
free fatty acids.
It just happens a lot fasterwhen you have unsaturated fats.
Versus a saturated fat, like,like tallow or something else
that has high saturates.
Those take a lot longer.
They're full of saturates, sothey take a lot longer to break
down, so they'll last longer ina fryer.
(16:56):
But that doesn't mean it'sbetter, it just means it's going
to last longer under certaincircumstances.
So there's a whole range inbetween there.
peanut oil is, has highersaturated fats, corn.
Jeremy Julian (17:07):
your, your price for performance.
I am guessing there, which kindof goes into your third pillar,
which is depending upon, boththe flavor profile, which is
kind of where you started theperformance of the oil, and then
price.
Because beef Tao's amazing ifyou're, there's a local barbecue
place.
I live in Texas.
There's a local barbecue placethat's just moved away from all
of the, all of the regular oils,you know, all of the seed oils
(17:28):
to cook with.
And they went with beef tallow.
They cook a lot of brisket, butat the same time, I know in
talking to the owner, it's moreexpensive to put that oil in.
It might last longer and for thefour items that he fries every
day, probably not a big deal forhim, for his single unit.
But when I'm getting into araising canes where they got 800
stores, all fried chicken, it'salmost impossible to get to that
(17:49):
level.
Is that kind of what
Ron Cardwell (17:50):
Yeah, that's for sure what we're seeing.
I think, I think when you gointo that price side, I think we
all know the, the wholeeconomic, formula of supply and
demand, right?
Um, though it's soybean oil,canola oil, they're in greater
supply, so their price is muchlower.
When you get to something liketowel, you set it right on.
It is a beautiful oil to frysome things with, if you're
going for a barbecue place doingsmall batch fry.
(18:12):
Great because it fits into themold.
They're not using much more, sothat higher price may not impact
em much, but when you get highvolume fryers, you have to
really say, okay, do we likethis flavor so much?
We're willing to incur the priceor not?
Jeremy Julian (18:26):
Or the Michelin star restaurants that are doing
duck fat
Ron Cardwell (18:29):
You got it.
Jeremy Julian (18:29):
at a place in Atlanta recently and I'm like,
they got these freaking tatertots, but I got four tater tots
fried and duck fat, and I paid,you know,$32 for four tater
tots.
I'm like, they're charging
Ron Cardwell (18:38):
I like it.
Don't get me wrong.
The, the beautiful duck fatfries are awesome, but is it
practical for your restaurantat, at all?
And that's really, that's reallythe part we're taking forward.
So that's that solid fat or thatmore saturated fat, it does come
at a higher price, but that'snot the only thing that's really
contributing to that price.
Right?
You have to look at where doesthat, where do these fats come
(18:59):
from?
Where do these oils come from?
tallow in particular is once ahot topic.
Right now.
Everyone's really looking at,Hey, use tallow instead of seed
oils.
Right?
And, and I won't get into thepolitical debate about it
because it's out there, buthere's the reality.
tallow comes from, from cattle,it comes from cattles, right?
It's rendered to be fed, if youwant to think of it that way.
One thing that is absolutelycertain is beef are not raised
(19:22):
or slaughtered.
For the fat, right?
So they're only going to beslaughtered for the meat and the
fat that's left over that goesinto tallow.
So there's a just a finiteamount of beef tallow in the
world that can be used.
And in the US in particular,even when you look at what we
import it, it really is like a10th of the volume of soybean
(19:44):
oil that's out there, right?
So you have to get to thispractical side of.
Could a large scale restaurants,could they switch over, to alo?
Probably if they worked reallyhard and were the first ones to
get to it.
but the price is gonna
Jeremy Julian (19:58):
But the supply and demand is gonna some
problems, and they're
Ron Cardwell (20:01):
it sure is.
And it's important to alsorealize there's, I mentioned
there's a finite supply.
It is not uncommon for aspecialty fat like Tao to not be
available because you just, it,the supplies have run out for
now and you're gonna be a weekor three weeks out from getting
resupplied.
Those sort of things do happen.
So, we see it in the, we see itin the peanut oil side as wells
not just relegated to, to beeffat.
(20:24):
There are one or two reallylarge buyers of peanut oil in
the us.
They get it first.
Jeremy Julian (20:29):
I'm assuming five guys is on that
Ron Cardwell (20:31):
that's one of the two.
Jeremy Julian (20:33):
I'm saying, I'm like, oh yeah.
'cause every time I'm, I don'thave anybody that has peanut
allergies, but when you walk init's like, dude, you got peanuts
here.
If you have got peanutallergies, get the heck out.
Ron Cardwell (20:40):
no, no doubt.
And there's another really goodchicken place that does it as
well too, right?
So these, these large places,they get, they really get first
dibs from the peanut oilsuppliers.
After that, it, good luck.
You may not get peanut oilright, because peanut oil has a
finite amount of supply.
So there's all these, theserealms within these cooking oils
(21:00):
that make the price really.
Either expensive or volatile.
And it could be supply, it couldbe could be decent supply and
still be very expensive.
But those are all thosedecisions that have to go into
making.
What do you want to use for yourrestaurant?
Because probably the mostimportant thing is consistency
for your restaurant, right?
Jeremy Julian (21:19):
Especially as you get to
Ron Cardwell (21:20):
You bet.
You
Jeremy Julian (21:21):
and you, you know, you, again, going to Beef
Tao is great if you're smallbatch, you know, you're this
barbecue place.
But as you get to macro levelnumber one and number two is,
it's inconsistent because it's aorganic, I mean, it's a, it's a
cow.
You have no idea what the, whatthe cattle ate to be able to get
that.
Whereas in, in soybean and someof those kind of things, it's a
little bit
Ron Cardwell (21:40):
yeah, there's there's definitely truth to
that.
I think the tallow industry'sreally good at homogenizing
those and, and pro and getting'em processed into the, into a
uniform product.
But what you don't know is theconsistency of supply is it
really can run out and you don'twanna have to switch to a
different oil.
Because you know it's notavailable and you certainly
don't want to just not offerfood,
Jeremy Julian (22:00):
Yeah, well, and, and, and obviously you can't,
you know, go market all, Hey,I'm doing all beef tallow, and
then three weeks from now
Ron Cardwell (22:05):
you got it.
You got it.
You got it.
Yeah.
Jeremy Julian (22:07):
you know,
Ron Cardwell (22:07):
That absolutely will.
Jeremy Julian (22:08):
Ron, I'm gonna flip, uh, the script a little
bit.
Let's talk about what are someways that you guys help educate
your users of the product to beable to.
Not only, I mean, we talked alot about kinda the filtering
and you guys helping with that,but what are some other ways
that you see that restaurantsout there that are listening can
maximize their oil spend in waysthat, that maybe they hadn't
(22:29):
thought about?
You know, you talked aboutfiltering, you talked about, you
know, you kind of threw in asingle line about potentially
not having the fryers turned onwhen, when they're not in use.
But I'd love to have you kind oftalk through some tips and
tricks that you've seen peopledo to get the most, the best
quality.
The longest lifespan out of theproduct that they're
Ron Cardwell (22:47):
Yeah, I think there, I think one thing that's
really overlooked a lot and.
And it's, I just think it's ingeneral, oil in general can be
overlooked a lot by a lot ofrestaurants.
I think.
there's several, um, suppliersout there, food service
suppliers who use oil as kind oftheir loss leader, if you will.
they'll, they'll sell you thecheapest oil they have because
they really want you to buytheir, their garlic and their
(23:07):
spices and things that havereally high margin on'em.
Right.
So it's easy for the restaurantto think.
It's not an important thing.
I use a lot of it.
I just need the cheapest thingout there.
That's one thing that you canfall into now.
I say that price matters onperformance, but you could still
get a readily available oil andplenty supply that is not that
much more expensive than thecheap oil, and it'll end up
(23:27):
lasting you longer.
Excuse me.
It'll end up lasting you longer.
So don't overlook the fact thatan oil may be slightly more
expensive and can be drasticallybetter.
As far as performance.
It's easy to fall into the, Hey,it's just oil.
Let's just buy the cheapestthing there is and get in there
right now.
At Restaurant Technologies, weare 100% oil agnostic.
(23:49):
If you, if you have an oil youwanna use, we'll try to get it
to you.
We want to just make sure youare using the right thing for
you that saves you money, right?
so we don't, we don't reallycare the oil except that it's
right for the restaurant becausewe want you to have good
performance and stay inbusiness.
so overlooking things like justthe cheap oil supply ready, oil
supply, those things.
Are there when you get intoperformance, it's don't take for
(24:11):
granted the person who is incharge of that oil, who's in
charge of those friars.
we all know it.
It's large quick servicerestaurants.
You have young kids, 16, 17years old, they're not managing
that oil properly, probably.
Um, and you're leaving that.
Performance of your food intothe hands of someone who, a, is
(24:31):
just, just not trained properlyor inexperienced or just young
or just doesn't care.
So I say the, the restaurant,the kitchen manager really needs
to take hold of the oil that'sgoing in there.
The only way you're gonna makeit to where you never think
about oil is if you think aboutit first, put the right
processes in place and say,okay, as long as these are in
(24:53):
place, we never have to worryabout it.
And that's when you'll get it.
Otherwise, you'll overlook thequality so quickly.
So I, I just can't state enoughhow much we have brilliant
salespeople and really goodsupport that we really try to
work with these kitchens and sothey don't have to think about
this in the future.
And probably the number onething is let's make sure you do
it right up front and then, andtrain your people to look at it.
(25:17):
Then you'll never have to do itagain.
We can always talk aboutdifferent oils.
We can always get the one youwant.
But as I said in the beginning,whichever one you're want,
you're using, treat it properly.
Handle it properly, and it willlast you longer and
Jeremy Julian (25:30):
Well, and what's, what's the end result of buying
cheap?
I mean,'cause at the end of theday, you talked about it, it
turning faster and ultimatelythat impacts the guest
experience.
It impacts the
Ron Cardwell (25:39):
Yeah, I think, I think the easy one is you're
gonna go through the oil faster,which obviously costs more.
I think the one that's hard toput a cost on is those
customers.
Who get bad food from it?
Are they ever gonna come back?
Are they gonna look at your,your, maybe the first time in
the, in the restaurant andthey're thinking all your food
tastes that way.
And one of the worst ones iswhen all the food tastes the
same.
(26:00):
And you mentioned, you know, youmentioned the, the, in the
beginning cooking fries and fishand all the things.
When that oil goes back, it'slike everything tastes the same.
So there's, it's hard to saywhat the cost of that is, but it
is a cost.
It's definitely,
Jeremy Julian (26:12):
can promise you, I, I text Dave when I have this
problem, when I'm at arestaurant that I know you guys
service, I'll text him and belike, dude, you gotta get on
these guys.
'cause uh, they have not changedtheir oil.
'cause it's, it's rough.
It's rough.
And you, and as a consumer, nowthat I'm familiar with what you
guys do, I just.
I had no idea that there wassuch a, not just an industry
around it, but really a, a rightway to do it and a wrong way to
(26:33):
do it.
And I know even for myself, whenI worked in restaurants as a
kid, I was one of those 16,17-year-old kids.
Nobody told me about all ofthis.
And we were still in the daysback, back then I got a little
bit of gray hair.
So it's been a while.
They didn't have all of theseautomated filtering systems, so
we had big.
Blue buckets out back with the,uh, the used oil that, that some
truck would show up every coupleof weeks and pick it up.
So, no, very familiar with, kindof the, the changing of it.
(26:54):
But nobody ever told me, this iswhat you're supposed to
Ron Cardwell (26:57):
right.
And you know, one of the, one,one of the items I'd, I'd be
remiss to not address is justsheer safety.
Now, the one low, the one.
spot in the kitchen that createsthe most injuries is the
changing of the oil.
In a fryer, you either getspills and burns or slips and
falls.
It's the most dangerous job inthe restaurant.
(27:17):
And I will say that what weprovide is we provide assurance
that nobody has to touch it.
You're not gonna get anybodyburning themselves.
You're not gonna get anybodyslipping and falling.
And that sort of savingsactually shows in insurance
rates for restaurants.
We've worked closely withinsurance companies where your
actual insurance prices can godown because we've eliminated
(27:37):
the safety hazard.
But forget about the insurance.
You, you have somebody who'sgonna go home.
Safe tonight, and they're notgonna be missing work.
Their family won't be worriedabout getting better.
That is one thing you, again,can't put a dollar value on, at
least in the terms of someone'ssafety.
And so that, that for sure isimportant to look at.
if you don't use a restauranttechnology system, great, fine.
(27:59):
I understand.
But give your people propertraining on how to handle that
oil.
Give them something so wherethey can safely transport it to
wherever it is because, slip andfalls and burns are so
dangerous.
it, it really does matter.
Jeremy Julian (28:11):
Yeah.
No, it's a, it's a huge deal.
And I know, um, uh, when yourlegal counsel was on her and I
talked quite a bit about whatthat looks like.
And, you know, it's, it's scary.
It's scary if you don't do itproperly.
kind of continuing down thatpath.
Now you, yes, we'd love for themto look at restaurant
technologies Incorporated, butwhat are some things that, if
you were sitting there andyou're now a restaurant owner
and you're like, Hey, I haven'tlooked at this.
(28:33):
You've opened my eyes, and now Ineed to go look at, at what are
some things that they need toconsider when they're looking at
an oil supplier and the waysthat they can make their oil.
delivery and removal, you guyshave competitors out there.
There's obviously, you guysdon't own the entire industry.
You guys own a lot, lot of it.
But what are some things thatthey should be looking at as
they're going out to findsuppliers for this product to
(28:55):
ensure that they get the bestproduct to their guests and have
the best, monetary return on
Ron Cardwell (29:00):
Yeah, I think if you're going to looking for just
any general oil supplier, youwanna make sure that, how often
are they gonna be able todeliver to you?
Right.
Because we've mentioned before,you don't wanna run out.
there's lots of parts of thecountry where there's a lot of
seasonality to the restaurantbusiness, right?
And you don't really know whenit's gonna pick up sometimes.
So you wanna make sure whoeveryou're getting the supply from.
If you call'em today, can theyget you the oil tomorrow because
(29:22):
you're, instead of two days fromnow, because now you sudden
you've got a weekend rush thatyou weren't expecting or the
weather came out way clearer atthe lake this week than we ever
expected.
So we're running low.
So make sure you have that goodsustainability of supply line
coming into you of the oil youwant, not just any oil they can
get you.
Right.
So I would really pay attentionto that.
I'd talk to that supplier aboutpricing.
(29:44):
They may be cheap right now, butare they gonna be cheap?
Are they gonna be havingconsistent pricing structure,
you know, six months, a yeardown the line?
Are they just trying to get lowprices to get you in the door?
are they doing this as a, as Imentioned before, as a loss
leader, you wanna,
Jeremy Julian (29:57):
Yeah.
Is it a broadliner that's not,that doesn't specialize in oil
and they just throw it on theback of the truck and it's
coming along with your lettuceand tomatoes and pickles
Ron Cardwell (30:05):
that's right.
And to where if you were tochange the supplier of those
other things, is it gonnasupply, gonna affect your oil
supply?
I always like to savesomebody's.
Giving you oil less than marketvalue means they're charging
more than market value onsomething else.
Right?
Right.
So, so, but, but make sure thatsupply line is really well open
on the backside, the usedcooking oil side, don't overlook
it.
I think it's a nasty thing inthe back of the restaurant for
(30:27):
these dumpsters where you'reputting things in and sometimes
you just forget about it.
And you hope that somebody'scoming by to pick it up because.
I don't know.
I don't really pay attention toit.
Most of'em will say, and youdon't wanna be at the point
where you have to call'em tocome get it.
but secondarily, there's valuein that used cooking on the back
of the restaurant.
And we all, we've all heard thestories of, the, the cooking oil
pirates that come through and,and essentially suck out that,
(30:50):
that used cooking oil so theycan sell it some.
Let's, that's revenue at thebottom line for the restaurant
owner too.
So talk to your uco, provi orsupplier, not supplier, your UCO
pickup service, and make surethey can secure that for you.
Find out how often they'll comeby if you have to call them.
Which leads me in probably toone other thing is, are you okay
with, handling the ordering andthe disposal?
(31:14):
Is it in your bandwidth to goahead and do that?
'cause you're gonna have to payattention to it on a regular
basis.
another restaurant technology.
Shameless plug, you'll neverhave to pay attention to it for
us.
We set it up and you'll neverhave to worry about ordering
again.
But if it, if it isn't us, makesure you don't forget about
those things.
'cause as I mentioned, sometimeswe just don't pay attention to
the fryer side and it becomes alast minute thing.
(31:36):
so just keep it in yourbandwidth.
Jeremy Julian (31:38):
Well, and I think everybody gets all excited about
it when they're opening arestaurant, but they don't look
at the maintenance of that longterm.
And then, and then they, youknow, bite'em in the butt.
'cause it's 30 days from nowthey got a problem and they
gotta figure out how to solveit.
So setting it up right in thebeginning is a huge piece
Ron Cardwell (31:51):
I think it falls.
Jeremy Julian (31:51):
to really making your life.
You didn't open a restaurant togo
Ron Cardwell (31:54):
No, no, no,
Jeremy Julian (31:55):
You opened up a restaurant to serve food and to
take care of people and, and allof
Ron Cardwell (31:58):
and I think it falls.
It falls a lot.
A lot of times we see it fallingin line with, um, cleaning
procedures.
Right.
Sometimes cleaning proceduresfall to the wayside.
Well.
Part of cleaning procedures iscleaning out that fryer and that
fry, all those things we talkedabout in filtering.
When you get that stuff in thefryer, you gotta remember to do
it.
Don't do it just when it's timeto clean the kitchen.
Jeremy Julian (32:17):
Yeah.
Well, and, and we've had aprevious guest on, and again, I
was teasing about, you know,calling one of your colleagues
about, uh, about somebody youget service oil for.
But at the end of the day, wehad a previous guest on that did
that, talked about, guestfeedback and, you know, you'll
get the guest feedback into yourcomment earlier.
They may never come back.
This may be their first timethere, they may never come back.
And so the fact that, uh, that'san opportunity out there is, is
(32:38):
huge.
So, Ron, how do people getconnected?
How do people, you know.
You've given us kind of a, ablueprint thisis, what you
should be looking for.
Where do they go?
How do they learn more?
I know, again, long timelisteners are probably like,
dude, I'm tired of hearing youtalk about Restaurant
Technologies Incorporated, buthonestly, I really am passionate
about making sure thatrestaurants are successful.
And so knowing where theseproducts are out there, because
(32:59):
again, nothing wrong with Cisco,nothing wrong with US Foods.
They're gonna sell you oil ifyou, if you let them.
They do a great job with, withsome of the things that they do.
It's not something theyspecialize in.
All you guys do is managingkitchens and kitchen oil and
such.
So how do people learn more?
How do people engage with yoursales
Ron Cardwell (33:14):
I think the best way is to get on our website,
rti i c.com.
You'll see all of our, ourregion, we have 41 depots around
the country.
So there, I promise you anybodywho's watching that, this is not
out of reach of a depot that canservice you.
Right?
We're everywhere.
And that website will connectyou with our sales team and
we'll get each of the rightpeople.
And from there they'll connectyou to whoever you need to talk
(33:35):
to.
I think it's important torealize that I'll say it again.
We can get you any oil that youneed, right?
I mean, what you're getting fromthe bigger US Feed Food Services
or Ciscos or places like that,we get oil from the same places,
right?
It's just not gonna come to youin a jug in a box.
It's gonna come to you in a bulkform.
So we can do all that, but justgo to our website, you'll see
where we're located.
get a rundown.
(33:56):
And as always, I like to makemyself available to every
customer who wants to call andtalk oil because.
Jeremy Julian (34:01):
Yeah.
'cause you're an oil nerd.
You know it's going on, it'sgoing on Your new business card
coming out next, uh, nextquarter.
So well, Ron, I, I genuinely, Imean, I, and I say this every
time, I get to learn new thingsand for me it's always awesome
to sit here on this side of themic and just kind of get to pick
people's brains that this iswhat they do.
I talk restaurant tech all daylong and how you can automate
the front of the house and theback of the house, but I love
(34:23):
listening to people that arereally solving restaurant
challenges.
So thank you for sharing yourexpertise.
Thank, thank you for continuingto, uh, invest in this space
because, uh, I know a lot ofrestaurants and a lot of
consumers at the end of the daybenefit because
Ron Cardwell (34:34):
Well, thank you very much for having me on.
It was a lot of fun.
Jeremy Julian (34:37):
Awesome.
And to our listeners guys, uh,like I said, uh, I know you guys
have got lots of choices.
If you haven't already done so,please subscribe using your
favorite player and make it agreat day.
Thanks for listening to TheRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, I am joinedby Ron Cardwell from Restaurant
Technologies Incorporated.
Uh, uh, you're listening to theshow and so you might think
(00:22):
restaurant technology isincorporated and restaurant
technology.
Guys, no real affiliation otherthan they've been a great
supporter of the show for thelast few years, and they've got
a really amazing oil managementsystem.
He and I dig into the world of.
Oil and why oil is so criticalto delivering the best guest
experience, how technology playsa part in it, how you can
continue to buy great productsto deliver the guest experience.
(00:46):
Um, if you don't know me, myname is Jeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS North Star.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution to multi-units.
Check us out@cbsnorthstar.comand now onto our show.
Jeremy Julian (00:59):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
As I say, each and every time.
I know you guys have got lots ofchoices, so thanks for hanging
out.
today we are joined.
Same company's been on, I thinkthis is their third, maybe
fourth show.
But I've got somebody comingfrom a different angle.
And so, and longtime listenerswill have heard RTI or
Restaurant TechnologiesIncorporated, as advertisers as
(01:21):
well on the show'cause I've gota good, uh, relationship with
one of Ron's business partnerson, uh, the inside on the
marketing side.
But Ron, why don't you introduceyourself a little bit, kind of
what do you get to do at,restaurant technologies and we
always tease every time I have aguest on.
Restaurant technology guys hasthe restaurant technologies
incorporated people on andpeople are like, who the hell is
who?
uh, but tell people a little bitabout who you are and then we
(01:42):
can talk, about kind of the pathgoing down.
Ron Cardwell (01:44):
Sure thing.
Thank you very much.
So my name's Ron Cardwell.
I'm the director of CommodityStrategy for Restaurant
Technologies.
What does that mean?
That just means I look overeverything oil related with the
company.
So we do two things with ourcompany.
We supply fresh cooking oil torestaurants, but we also take
away that used cooking oil.
So I just look over the riskstrategies of both of our used
cooking oil and how it makes itto the renewable fuel sector,
(02:05):
and then also helping do someadvising on the fresh oil side.
My history, I spent 22 yearswith one of the large
agribusiness companies all ofthat time in the oil sector.
So it was all dealing with allthe food companies we know, plus
restaurants and all thosethings, as well as working in
the biofuel space.
So I try to help a little bitwith our sales group and
(02:26):
informational group, uh, orinformation for our sales group
rather.
About oil quality, oil uses,things like that, just from my
background of working in thefood side as well.
But I'm the resident oil nerd, Iguess you can say, and I'm, uh,
one of those weird people whoreally love talking about it.
So, um, it's always realpleasure for me to get to talk
about that sort of thing withanybody who wants to listen to
(02:46):
it.
Jeremy Julian (02:47):
I think I need to get you business cards that say
oil nerd instead of director ofcommodity strategy for oil,
Ron Cardwell (02:53):
it'd be better.
Um, you know, I'm not the mostpopular guy at the cocktail
party, so these podcasts arewhat I live for.
Right.
Just lemme.
Jeremy Julian (03:00):
I love it.
Um, real quick before we jumpinto the state of the oil
industry, I know that you guyspublish a study every year, and
I'd love to just remind ourlisteners that might have missed
kind of where you guys are at.
You know, you talk aboutrecycling a lot of what you guys
do, and one of the things thatmakes me proud to have you guys
on the show as often as I do,is, is not only are you guys
trying to do what's best for.
(03:20):
you know, the end user to getthe right product into
restaurants so that they can getgood product, but you guys also
try and take care of theenvironment.
So I'd love to talk, have youtalked just a little bit before
we jump into kind of themajority of our topics for today
on how and why is that such animportant premise for your guys'
Ron Cardwell (03:36):
Yeah.
Well thank you for letting mespeak about that.
'cause it's one of my most, myfavorite things about our
company is we really close thiscircle of sustainability.
We really do.
Um, so a as many know that wedeliver that fresh oil to the
restaurants and we take away UCOor used cooking oil from the
restaurants.
And we do that as a service, butalso to help provide value to
the restaurants that we're,we're servicing, right?
(03:57):
So we take that used cookingwhile we sell it.
To the renewable dieselmanufacturer.
So they take all that usedfrying oil and they make diesel
fuel out of it, right?
And it goes, it feeds right intothe diesel pool of all these
service stations that you see upand down the highways, right?
They're all blended withbiodiesel or renewable diesel.
So we make sure we get everydrop of that used cooking oil to
(04:19):
that renewable fuelmanufacturer.
And last year, I don't know theexact number, just shy of 400
million pounds.
Of used cooking oil we put intothe renewable fuel sector, and
we'll continue to grow everyyear with it.
Um, what's great about us is weonly take back used cooking oil
that we supplied the original,fresh oil for, right?
So we have full traceability.
(04:40):
So everybody has real confidencein the sustainability of what we
are providing.
no, uh, no fake oil, no, virginoil, making it into the stream
or anything like that.
So we're very proud of that andsomething that.
we work really hard to make surewe can maintain what does that
mean for the restaurants?
We get the best value for thatUCO too, and we help pass that
on to our customers.
(05:01):
It's core to what we do.
It's not just us keeping all themoney.
Right.
we share it with everyone acrossthe board.
So the more value we get for it,the more that goes back to those
restaurants.
Jeremy Julian (05:10):
No, and I, and uh, part of what I said is I'm
proud to partner with you guys'cause I just love that you guys
have that sustainability effort.
and really, yeah, at least fromwhat I understand, the
alternative is throwing it awayor, or storing it in the storing
can get behind the, I mean,there's so many bad alternatives
for the world that not only arebad financially, but just bad o
overall.
Is
Ron Cardwell (05:30):
That's very fair to say.
Um, I mean, you have a lot ofcompanies who try to, collect
that stuff from the nastydumpsters in the back of the
stores and you don't know whatgets in there.
But worse than that is the,whatever volume is in those open
container dumpsters back there,not all of it is actually gonna
be used because it's gets.
it kind of gets dirty and itgets things inside that just has
to be thrown away whetherthey're trying to recycle it or
(05:52):
not.
So a hundred percent of what wetake in will make it to that
renewable fuels production.
So it's sustainable and reliablefor sure.
Jeremy Julian (06:01):
Love that.
Um, so Ron, talk to me a littlebit about cooking oil.
as an amateur cook myself, I dohave a couple of different
kinds, but they're, you know,it's not at the levels anywhere
close to what restaurants are.
And I know that even in my ownworld, and I tell this story
when people will listen to me,where we had a customer that was
having a problem with their,not, wasn't a problem with their
(06:21):
cooking oil.
Their cooking oil was great.
The type of cooking oil wascausing some issues in their
kitchen, and so they had toevaluate is peanut oil or canola
oil, whatever it was that theywere cooking with.
It was changing the molecular,uh, complexion of, of things
that were going on.
And so I, I don't realize itbecause I'm just a dumb consumer
and I.
You know, I'm a home cook andit's like, you know, you've got
(06:41):
a little bit of olive oil, yougot a little bit of canola oil,
you got a little bit avocado,avocado oil, but there's so many
different kinds out there.
So from a pure restaurantperspective, talk to me a little
bit about where is the gamut andhow much of that are you guys
selling?
What does it all
Ron Cardwell (06:53):
Sure.
Well, I, it's easy for you tohave that confusion.
I think most of us that cook athome.
You know, we just use a littlebit of oil in our cooking.
Maybe some sauteing, very few ofus actually deep fry at home,
right?
So we don't do it.
But deep frying is really harshon your oil and it really breaks
things down.
So when you go to a commercialkitchen, I think we overlook how
important that oil is to gettinggood quality food out.
(07:15):
'cause we don't really do it athome, right?
So what you have in the US is,you've got, most of the oil used
in restaurants is soybean oil.
That's just.
It's a function of supply andprice, right?
It's predominantly by two thirdsthe most popular oil.
Next.
Below that, you have canola oil,and then you'll have, corn oil,
and then there's all kinds ofblends of other oil in there.
(07:37):
Now these are, cotton seed oilor peanut oil, as you mentioned,
or things like that.
There's three factors in thoseoils that makes a restaurant
decide what to do, and that'sthe flavor of the oil.
It's the performance of the oil,and it's the price of the oil.
And every restaurant has acombination of those three
factors to figure out what worksbest for them.
(07:59):
So it's gonna be very differentfor every restaurant, what they
get and what they do.
But what isn't different is howthey handle that oil and how it
performs in their food and intheir kitchen to become safe and
just make good food.
Jeremy Julian (08:14):
Yeah, no, and I, and I think everybody kind of
gets the taste, you know, the,the flavor profile.
But even in that, Ron, I'd lovefor you to talk a little bit,
because if I'm frying, fish, I'mfrying fish in an oil versus
frying chicken.
Versus frying french fries inthat same oil, you're going to
have different flavor profilesthat are gonna come through.
And so flavor is obviously, youknow, you put it at number one
(08:34):
and it is a critical piece, butI think even as people are
considering LTOs and consideringnew products out to market, they
need to identify how am I gonnacook this on a consistent basis
to ensure that the product Ialready have in house is gonna
fulfill
Ron Cardwell (08:47):
Yeah.
And it's, it's the primaryconcern of the chef or whoever's
making the menu in therestaurant is, how is my food
gonna taste when it comes out?
So some oils, your soybean oiland canola oil, for instance,
the reason they're the mostpopular, I, I mentioned they're
most, most in supply or they,their price competitiveness, but
they provide a neutral flavor.
To food.
Okay?
So most of the time, unless theoil is bad, but in fresh oil,
(09:11):
most of the time you're gonnacome out with food that tastes
like the food, like it tastesyour fish is gonna taste like
the fish, or your fries aregonna taste like the fries.
And that's because the oilprovides a neutral flavor.
But there are oils that impartflavor to it, right?
So peanut oil, the reason it'sso popular with some restaurants
and some consumers.
Is it?
'cause it adds a flavor to thefood, right?
(09:32):
And that's the same, same can besaid for corn oil or a few other
oils, beef tallow, those thingsimpart a flavor to the food.
Is that good or bad?
Ask the chef.
That's what matters is, is, isthat flavor what you're going
for?
Is it adding to your food or isit something that you wanna stay
away from?
And so that's kind of the firstflavor question to ask is, do
(09:54):
you wanna taste just the food ordo you wanna add flavor to the
food?
Through the oil.
Jeremy Julian (10:00):
Yeah.
Well, and I think, uh, acrossthe board, I also think, you
know, we'll talk aboutperformance here in a second and
then we'll get to price,'causethose were your, your second and
third pillars.
But even from a longevityperspective, peanut oil is great
if you guys maintain it well,and I know that's part of what
you guys do.
And I think across the board,all of the oils that you talk
about.
The chef is going to taste itwhen the oil's brand new, fresh,
(10:23):
the fryer's, brand new andfresh, they're gonna test it in
the test kitchen, not after50,000 batches of, chicken
tenders have fried in that.
So I think that also is a keycomponent to ensure not only
that you've got the rightproduct in there, but that it
stands up over
Ron Cardwell (10:37):
that's right.
You know, one of the things I,I, I probably get the most flack
for when we talk about theseoils things is one of my answers
is always, it depends, right?
Because a lot of people ask me,what's the best for this?
Or how do you do this?
And I always say, it depends.
One thing that does not dependon anything is how you handle
your oil.
That is a constant.
You always wanna make sure it isfiltered and you always wanna
(10:59):
make sure it's at the righttemperature and you wanna make
sure it's changed at the righttime.
It doesn't matter what oilyou're using.
Those three things have tomatter.
So why do they matter?
Alright, let's talk aboutfiltering for a second.
When you put food in oil, if.
Anything falls off that food,whether it's bat thick,
battered, or crumbs from thefood or anything like that, it
(11:19):
falls into that oil well, whenyou pull the food out, all those
crumbs are still in there andthey're still in there frying
away.
And as they fry away, theycreate volatile compounds in
that oil that make it degradefaster and faster.
And it's kind of, um, it's kindof an exponential de
degradation, right?
It's not just straight line.
It kind of goes, really curvesup is the longer it's in there,
(11:40):
the faster that oil degrades.
So you wanna take out thosecrumbs and those filter those
particles out of the oil to stopthe degradation, right?
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is gonna bemaking sure it's at the right
temperature.
If your oil is at 425 degrees,which is way hot, that heat.
Allows oxygen to get into theoil and oxygen is what breaks it
(12:04):
down and gets bad flavor.
So again, it's going to degradefaster and faster.
Now there's some, obviously somespace for the temperature and
that's gonna be up to the chefand the food you're frying.
But you wanna make sure you haveit at the right temperature all
the time and you turn it offwhen you're not using it, so
you're not heating itunnecessarily.
Right.
So those are things that willdegrade the oil for sure.
(12:25):
Lastly, if the oil startsgetting all flavors or you get
smoke in it, or you have justbad tasting food, if you taste
it and it tastes bad, it's toolate.
It's gone.
It's gone out the, it's alreadygone out the kitchen door.
So you need to watch itconsistently to say, all right,
is it time to change it?
And don't second guess yourself,change it, right?
(12:46):
But you want to change it asoften if you filter it properly,
and if you keep the righttemperature on there.
So those are the things thatreally.
Really break down an oil nomatter which one you use, right?
Jeremy Julian (12:57):
Well, and the funny part is, is uh, uh, you
know, I joke about being anamateur chef.
You know, like a lot of peopleat COVID, I found the recipe for
the Disney, um, churros anddecided to fry some churros at
home.
You know, if anybody remembersthose from 2020, I was like,
dude, I gotta try these churrosat home.
They were fantastic, but the oilwas ranted by the end of the by,
because I have four kids andeverybody wanted them, and then
they kept.
I'm like, dude, I can't keepfrying these things.
(13:18):
'cause to your point, stufffalls on the bottom of'em and,
and you know, it just, it endsup, uh, that ends up being
something.
And I think all too few people,if they don't have a good oil
management system, which I,again, I know that that's what
you guys do, end up knowing thatthis is.
you gotta change it this oftenand you gotta filter it this
way.
So, and I, again, even on that,I think you guys even have a
realtime filtering processthat's not just, lemme scoop the
(13:41):
bot, you know, scoop the littlebits out of the bottom of that.
And so I'll let you sell alittle bit on your guys'
realtime filtering tool that youguys do sell to, to
Ron Cardwell (13:48):
Yeah, we call the total oil management system, so
it's not just about deliveringoil.
when you need it and taking awaythe used cooking oil, it, it's
really about how you handle thatoil while it's in the fryer.
We want you to use that oil aslong as you can and turn out the
best food you can.
So we have a filtering processand we, we actually teach the
restaurant staff when we do aninstallation.
We tell them how to use thatfiltering process, how often to
(14:10):
filter and what to watch for.
Um, but yeah, it, it is, it'sbuilt in and you just.
you put it through a screen andyou filter it properly.
Can reuse that oil a couple oftimes depending on, on what
you're doing.
But we educate definitely therestaurant staff on how to do
that.
It just lengthens the time thatyou can use that oil.
Jeremy Julian (14:27):
Which I think goes back to, talk to me a
little bit about performance.
You talked about that being kindof a second pillar when you're,
you're doing, what does thateven mean?
and again, I think, you know,there's, there's the quality of
it.
And again, going back to my homecook days, like, oh, I go buy
the more expensive one.
In theory, I would hope thatit's gonna taste better and it's
gonna last longer, but maybenot.
I, I'd love to, to have youspeak to kind of what does even
performance
Ron Cardwell (14:47):
I think performances might be the, might
be the, the one quality that'sasked about most when we talk to
our, our restaurants.
it's really how long does thatoil hold up?
In other words, how many, howoften am I have to change it
because that leads to highercost, right?
If you are using more oil thanyou have to, it's more
expensive.
It doesn't matter what.
Per unit cost is, so performanceis gonna come by.
(15:07):
Here's where he gets to me.
It depends on what you'recooking, right?
So you can have a, a fryerthat's gonna cook french fries,
non battered, normal frenchfries.
You can have another fryer withthe same oil, the same
temperature that's cookingbreaded chicken, right?
And those two oils will breakdown.
At different rates and it reallyhas to do with what you're
(15:28):
cooking in there.
Moisture content, things likebatter, as I mentioned, those
sort of things.
So you want an oil that's goingto perform for what you are
going to be cooking in.
Now, some restaurants have awide variety of things that go
in, in the fryers.
Some separate the fryers basedupon what's going in, right, um,
for different reasons.
But you want to know what isgoing in that fryer and what
(15:49):
kind of performance can youexpect to get out of the oil in
there.
so that's the number, that's thereason performance matters.
So now what, what leads tobetter performance?
It has to do with the stabilityof the oil.
And when I say stability, Imean, how does it hold up under
those hot conditions of a fryer?
Things like soybean oil andcanola oil are great.
(16:10):
All purpose oils, they reallyare, but they don't hold up
against something like a solidfat tallow, right?
The thing that's a big solidblock that goes in there.
So why don't they hold up aswell?
Well, soybean and canola have alot of unsaturated fats and
unsaturated fats.
If I don't want to get into a,um, a food chemistry course
here, but essentially they haveno double bonds in their
(16:34):
molecular structure.
And without those double bonds,they break away and they become
free fatty acids.
It just happens a lot fasterwhen you have unsaturated fats.
Versus a saturated fat, like,like tallow or something else
that has high saturates.
Those take a lot longer.
They're full of saturates, sothey take a lot longer to break
down, so they'll last longer ina fryer.
(16:56):
But that doesn't mean it'sbetter, it just means it's going
to last longer under certaincircumstances.
So there's a whole range inbetween there.
peanut oil is, has highersaturated fats, corn.
Jeremy Julian (17:07):
your, your price for performance.
I am guessing there, which kindof goes into your third pillar,
which is depending upon, boththe flavor profile, which is
kind of where you started theperformance of the oil, and then
price.
Because beef Tao's amazing ifyou're, there's a local barbecue
place.
I live in Texas.
There's a local barbecue placethat's just moved away from all
of the, all of the regular oils,you know, all of the seed oils
(17:28):
to cook with.
And they went with beef tallow.
They cook a lot of brisket, butat the same time, I know in
talking to the owner, it's moreexpensive to put that oil in.
It might last longer and for thefour items that he fries every
day, probably not a big deal forhim, for his single unit.
But when I'm getting into araising canes where they got 800
stores, all fried chicken, it'salmost impossible to get to that
(17:49):
level.
Is that kind of what
Ron Cardwell (17:50):
Yeah, that's for sure what we're seeing.
I think, I think when you gointo that price side, I think we
all know the, the wholeeconomic, formula of supply and
demand, right?
Um, though it's soybean oil,canola oil, they're in greater
supply, so their price is muchlower.
When you get to something liketowel, you set it right on.
It is a beautiful oil to frysome things with, if you're
going for a barbecue place doingsmall batch fry.
(18:12):
Great because it fits into themold.
They're not using much more, sothat higher price may not impact
em much, but when you get highvolume fryers, you have to
really say, okay, do we likethis flavor so much?
We're willing to incur the priceor not?
Jeremy Julian (18:26):
Or the Michelin star restaurants that are doing
duck fat
Ron Cardwell (18:29):
You got it.
Jeremy Julian (18:29):
at a place in Atlanta recently and I'm like,
they got these freaking tatertots, but I got four tater tots
fried and duck fat, and I paid,you know,$32 for four tater
tots.
I'm like, they're charging
Ron Cardwell (18:38):
I like it.
Don't get me wrong.
The, the beautiful duck fatfries are awesome, but is it
practical for your restaurantat, at all?
And that's really, that's reallythe part we're taking forward.
So that's that solid fat or thatmore saturated fat, it does come
at a higher price, but that'snot the only thing that's really
contributing to that price.
Right?
You have to look at where doesthat, where do these fats come
(18:59):
from?
Where do these oils come from?
tallow in particular is once ahot topic.
Right now.
Everyone's really looking at,Hey, use tallow instead of seed
oils.
Right?
And, and I won't get into thepolitical debate about it
because it's out there, buthere's the reality.
tallow comes from, from cattle,it comes from cattles, right?
It's rendered to be fed, if youwant to think of it that way.
One thing that is absolutelycertain is beef are not raised
(19:22):
or slaughtered.
For the fat, right?
So they're only going to beslaughtered for the meat and the
fat that's left over that goesinto tallow.
So there's a just a finiteamount of beef tallow in the
world that can be used.
And in the US in particular,even when you look at what we
import it, it really is like a10th of the volume of soybean
(19:44):
oil that's out there, right?
So you have to get to thispractical side of.
Could a large scale restaurants,could they switch over, to alo?
Probably if they worked reallyhard and were the first ones to
get to it.
but the price is gonna
Jeremy Julian (19:58):
But the supply and demand is gonna some
problems, and they're
Ron Cardwell (20:01):
it sure is.
And it's important to alsorealize there's, I mentioned
there's a finite supply.
It is not uncommon for aspecialty fat like Tao to not be
available because you just, it,the supplies have run out for
now and you're gonna be a weekor three weeks out from getting
resupplied.
Those sort of things do happen.
So, we see it in the, we see itin the peanut oil side as wells
not just relegated to, to beeffat.
(20:24):
There are one or two reallylarge buyers of peanut oil in
the us.
They get it first.
Jeremy Julian (20:29):
I'm assuming five guys is on that
Ron Cardwell (20:31):
that's one of the two.
Jeremy Julian (20:33):
I'm saying, I'm like, oh yeah.
'cause every time I'm, I don'thave anybody that has peanut
allergies, but when you walk init's like, dude, you got peanuts
here.
If you have got peanutallergies, get the heck out.
Ron Cardwell (20:40):
no, no doubt.
And there's another really goodchicken place that does it as
well too, right?
So these, these large places,they get, they really get first
dibs from the peanut oilsuppliers.
After that, it, good luck.
You may not get peanut oilright, because peanut oil has a
finite amount of supply.
So there's all these, theserealms within these cooking oils
(21:00):
that make the price really.
Either expensive or volatile.
And it could be supply, it couldbe could be decent supply and
still be very expensive.
But those are all thosedecisions that have to go into
making.
What do you want to use for yourrestaurant?
Because probably the mostimportant thing is consistency
for your restaurant, right?
Jeremy Julian (21:19):
Especially as you get to
Ron Cardwell (21:20):
You bet.
You
Jeremy Julian (21:21):
and you, you know, you, again, going to Beef
Tao is great if you're smallbatch, you know, you're this
barbecue place.
But as you get to macro levelnumber one and number two is,
it's inconsistent because it's aorganic, I mean, it's a, it's a
cow.
You have no idea what the, whatthe cattle ate to be able to get
that.
Whereas in, in soybean and someof those kind of things, it's a
little bit
Ron Cardwell (21:40):
yeah, there's there's definitely truth to
that.
I think the tallow industry'sreally good at homogenizing
those and, and pro and getting'em processed into the, into a
uniform product.
But what you don't know is theconsistency of supply is it
really can run out and you don'twanna have to switch to a
different oil.
Because you know it's notavailable and you certainly
don't want to just not offerfood,
Jeremy Julian (22:00):
Yeah, well, and, and, and obviously you can't,
you know, go market all, Hey,I'm doing all beef tallow, and
then three weeks from now
Ron Cardwell (22:05):
you got it.
You got it.
You got it.
Yeah.
Jeremy Julian (22:07):
you know,
Ron Cardwell (22:07):
That absolutely will.
Jeremy Julian (22:08):
Ron, I'm gonna flip, uh, the script a little
bit.
Let's talk about what are someways that you guys help educate
your users of the product to beable to.
Not only, I mean, we talked alot about kinda the filtering
and you guys helping with that,but what are some other ways
that you see that restaurantsout there that are listening can
maximize their oil spend in waysthat, that maybe they hadn't
(22:29):
thought about?
You know, you talked aboutfiltering, you talked about, you
know, you kind of threw in asingle line about potentially
not having the fryers turned onwhen, when they're not in use.
But I'd love to have you kind oftalk through some tips and
tricks that you've seen peopledo to get the most, the best
quality.
The longest lifespan out of theproduct that they're
Ron Cardwell (22:47):
Yeah, I think there, I think one thing that's
really overlooked a lot and.
And it's, I just think it's ingeneral, oil in general can be
overlooked a lot by a lot ofrestaurants.
I think.
there's several, um, suppliersout there, food service
suppliers who use oil as kind oftheir loss leader, if you will.
they'll, they'll sell you thecheapest oil they have because
they really want you to buytheir, their garlic and their
(23:07):
spices and things that havereally high margin on'em.
Right.
So it's easy for the restaurantto think.
It's not an important thing.
I use a lot of it.
I just need the cheapest thingout there.
That's one thing that you canfall into now.
I say that price matters onperformance, but you could still
get a readily available oil andplenty supply that is not that
much more expensive than thecheap oil, and it'll end up
(23:27):
lasting you longer.
Excuse me.
It'll end up lasting you longer.
So don't overlook the fact thatan oil may be slightly more
expensive and can be drasticallybetter.
As far as performance.
It's easy to fall into the, Hey,it's just oil.
Let's just buy the cheapestthing there is and get in there
right now.
At Restaurant Technologies, weare 100% oil agnostic.
(23:49):
If you, if you have an oil youwanna use, we'll try to get it
to you.
We want to just make sure youare using the right thing for
you that saves you money, right?
so we don't, we don't reallycare the oil except that it's
right for the restaurant becausewe want you to have good
performance and stay inbusiness.
so overlooking things like justthe cheap oil supply ready, oil
supply, those things.
Are there when you get intoperformance, it's don't take for
(24:11):
granted the person who is incharge of that oil, who's in
charge of those friars.
we all know it.
It's large quick servicerestaurants.
You have young kids, 16, 17years old, they're not managing
that oil properly, probably.
Um, and you're leaving that.
Performance of your food intothe hands of someone who, a, is
(24:31):
just, just not trained properlyor inexperienced or just young
or just doesn't care.
So I say the, the restaurant,the kitchen manager really needs
to take hold of the oil that'sgoing in there.
The only way you're gonna makeit to where you never think
about oil is if you think aboutit first, put the right
processes in place and say,okay, as long as these are in
(24:53):
place, we never have to worryabout it.
And that's when you'll get it.
Otherwise, you'll overlook thequality so quickly.
So I, I just can't state enoughhow much we have brilliant
salespeople and really goodsupport that we really try to
work with these kitchens and sothey don't have to think about
this in the future.
And probably the number onething is let's make sure you do
it right up front and then, andtrain your people to look at it.
(25:17):
Then you'll never have to do itagain.
We can always talk aboutdifferent oils.
We can always get the one youwant.
But as I said in the beginning,whichever one you're want,
you're using, treat it properly.
Handle it properly, and it willlast you longer and
Jeremy Julian (25:30):
Well, and what's, what's the end result of buying
cheap?
I mean,'cause at the end of theday, you talked about it, it
turning faster and ultimatelythat impacts the guest
experience.
It impacts the
Ron Cardwell (25:39):
Yeah, I think, I think the easy one is you're
gonna go through the oil faster,which obviously costs more.
I think the one that's hard toput a cost on is those
customers.
Who get bad food from it?
Are they ever gonna come back?
Are they gonna look at your,your, maybe the first time in
the, in the restaurant andthey're thinking all your food
tastes that way.
And one of the worst ones iswhen all the food tastes the
same.
(26:00):
And you mentioned, you know, youmentioned the, the, in the
beginning cooking fries and fishand all the things.
When that oil goes back, it'slike everything tastes the same.
So there's, it's hard to saywhat the cost of that is, but it
is a cost.
It's definitely,
Jeremy Julian (26:12):
can promise you, I, I text Dave when I have this
problem, when I'm at arestaurant that I know you guys
service, I'll text him and belike, dude, you gotta get on
these guys.
'cause uh, they have not changedtheir oil.
'cause it's, it's rough.
It's rough.
And you, and as a consumer, nowthat I'm familiar with what you
guys do, I just.
I had no idea that there wassuch a, not just an industry
around it, but really a, a rightway to do it and a wrong way to
(26:33):
do it.
And I know even for myself, whenI worked in restaurants as a
kid, I was one of those 16,17-year-old kids.
Nobody told me about all ofthis.
And we were still in the daysback, back then I got a little
bit of gray hair.
So it's been a while.
They didn't have all of theseautomated filtering systems, so
we had big.
Blue buckets out back with the,uh, the used oil that, that some
truck would show up every coupleof weeks and pick it up.
So, no, very familiar with, kindof the, the changing of it.
(26:54):
But nobody ever told me, this iswhat you're supposed to
Ron Cardwell (26:57):
right.
And you know, one of the, one,one of the items I'd, I'd be
remiss to not address is justsheer safety.
Now, the one low, the one.
spot in the kitchen that createsthe most injuries is the
changing of the oil.
In a fryer, you either getspills and burns or slips and
falls.
It's the most dangerous job inthe restaurant.
(27:17):
And I will say that what weprovide is we provide assurance
that nobody has to touch it.
You're not gonna get anybodyburning themselves.
You're not gonna get anybodyslipping and falling.
And that sort of savingsactually shows in insurance
rates for restaurants.
We've worked closely withinsurance companies where your
actual insurance prices can godown because we've eliminated
(27:37):
the safety hazard.
But forget about the insurance.
You, you have somebody who'sgonna go home.
Safe tonight, and they're notgonna be missing work.
Their family won't be worriedabout getting better.
That is one thing you, again,can't put a dollar value on, at
least in the terms of someone'ssafety.
And so that, that for sure isimportant to look at.
if you don't use a restauranttechnology system, great, fine.
(27:59):
I understand.
But give your people propertraining on how to handle that
oil.
Give them something so wherethey can safely transport it to
wherever it is because, slip andfalls and burns are so
dangerous.
it, it really does matter.
Jeremy Julian (28:11):
Yeah.
No, it's a, it's a huge deal.
And I know, um, uh, when yourlegal counsel was on her and I
talked quite a bit about whatthat looks like.
And, you know, it's, it's scary.
It's scary if you don't do itproperly.
kind of continuing down thatpath.
Now you, yes, we'd love for themto look at restaurant
technologies Incorporated, butwhat are some things that, if
you were sitting there andyou're now a restaurant owner
and you're like, Hey, I haven'tlooked at this.
(28:33):
You've opened my eyes, and now Ineed to go look at, at what are
some things that they need toconsider when they're looking at
an oil supplier and the waysthat they can make their oil.
delivery and removal, you guyshave competitors out there.
There's obviously, you guysdon't own the entire industry.
You guys own a lot, lot of it.
But what are some things thatthey should be looking at as
they're going out to findsuppliers for this product to
(28:55):
ensure that they get the bestproduct to their guests and have
the best, monetary return on
Ron Cardwell (29:00):
Yeah, I think if you're going to looking for just
any general oil supplier, youwanna make sure that, how often
are they gonna be able todeliver to you?
Right.
Because we've mentioned before,you don't wanna run out.
there's lots of parts of thecountry where there's a lot of
seasonality to the restaurantbusiness, right?
And you don't really know whenit's gonna pick up sometimes.
So you wanna make sure whoeveryou're getting the supply from.
If you call'em today, can theyget you the oil tomorrow because
(29:22):
you're, instead of two days fromnow, because now you sudden
you've got a weekend rush thatyou weren't expecting or the
weather came out way clearer atthe lake this week than we ever
expected.
So we're running low.
So make sure you have that goodsustainability of supply line
coming into you of the oil youwant, not just any oil they can
get you.
Right.
So I would really pay attentionto that.
I'd talk to that supplier aboutpricing.
(29:44):
They may be cheap right now, butare they gonna be cheap?
Are they gonna be havingconsistent pricing structure,
you know, six months, a yeardown the line?
Are they just trying to get lowprices to get you in the door?
are they doing this as a, as Imentioned before, as a loss
leader, you wanna,
Jeremy Julian (29:57):
Yeah.
Is it a broadliner that's not,that doesn't specialize in oil
and they just throw it on theback of the truck and it's
coming along with your lettuceand tomatoes and pickles
Ron Cardwell (30:05):
that's right.
And to where if you were tochange the supplier of those
other things, is it gonnasupply, gonna affect your oil
supply?
I always like to savesomebody's.
Giving you oil less than marketvalue means they're charging
more than market value onsomething else.
Right?
Right.
So, so, but, but make sure thatsupply line is really well open
on the backside, the usedcooking oil side, don't overlook
it.
I think it's a nasty thing inthe back of the restaurant for
(30:27):
these dumpsters where you'reputting things in and sometimes
you just forget about it.
And you hope that somebody'scoming by to pick it up because.
I don't know.
I don't really pay attention toit.
Most of'em will say, and youdon't wanna be at the point
where you have to call'em tocome get it.
but secondarily, there's valuein that used cooking on the back
of the restaurant.
And we all, we've all heard thestories of, the, the cooking oil
pirates that come through and,and essentially suck out that,
(30:50):
that used cooking oil so theycan sell it some.
Let's, that's revenue at thebottom line for the restaurant
owner too.
So talk to your uco, provi orsupplier, not supplier, your UCO
pickup service, and make surethey can secure that for you.
Find out how often they'll comeby if you have to call them.
Which leads me in probably toone other thing is, are you okay
with, handling the ordering andthe disposal?
(31:14):
Is it in your bandwidth to goahead and do that?
'cause you're gonna have to payattention to it on a regular
basis.
another restaurant technology.
Shameless plug, you'll neverhave to pay attention to it for
us.
We set it up and you'll neverhave to worry about ordering
again.
But if it, if it isn't us, makesure you don't forget about
those things.
'cause as I mentioned, sometimeswe just don't pay attention to
the fryer side and it becomes alast minute thing.
(31:36):
so just keep it in yourbandwidth.
Jeremy Julian (31:38):
Well, and I think everybody gets all excited about
it when they're opening arestaurant, but they don't look
at the maintenance of that longterm.
And then, and then they, youknow, bite'em in the butt.
'cause it's 30 days from nowthey got a problem and they
gotta figure out how to solveit.
So setting it up right in thebeginning is a huge piece
Ron Cardwell (31:51):
I think it falls.
Jeremy Julian (31:51):
to really making your life.
You didn't open a restaurant togo
Ron Cardwell (31:54):
No, no, no,
Jeremy Julian (31:55):
You opened up a restaurant to serve food and to
take care of people and, and allof
Ron Cardwell (31:58):
and I think it falls.
It falls a lot.
A lot of times we see it fallingin line with, um, cleaning
procedures.
Right.
Sometimes cleaning proceduresfall to the wayside.
Well.
Part of cleaning procedures iscleaning out that fryer and that
fry, all those things we talkedabout in filtering.
When you get that stuff in thefryer, you gotta remember to do
it.
Don't do it just when it's timeto clean the kitchen.
Jeremy Julian (32:17):
Yeah.
Well, and, and we've had aprevious guest on, and again, I
was teasing about, you know,calling one of your colleagues
about, uh, about somebody youget service oil for.
But at the end of the day, wehad a previous guest on that did
that, talked about, guestfeedback and, you know, you'll
get the guest feedback into yourcomment earlier.
They may never come back.
This may be their first timethere, they may never come back.
And so the fact that, uh, that'san opportunity out there is, is
(32:38):
huge.
So, Ron, how do people getconnected?
How do people, you know.
You've given us kind of a, ablueprint thisis, what you
should be looking for.
Where do they go?
How do they learn more?
I know, again, long timelisteners are probably like,
dude, I'm tired of hearing youtalk about Restaurant
Technologies Incorporated, buthonestly, I really am passionate
about making sure thatrestaurants are successful.
And so knowing where theseproducts are out there, because
(32:59):
again, nothing wrong with Cisco,nothing wrong with US Foods.
They're gonna sell you oil ifyou, if you let them.
They do a great job with, withsome of the things that they do.
It's not something theyspecialize in.
All you guys do is managingkitchens and kitchen oil and
such.
So how do people learn more?
How do people engage with yoursales
Ron Cardwell (33:14):
I think the best way is to get on our website,
rti i c.com.
You'll see all of our, ourregion, we have 41 depots around
the country.
So there, I promise you anybodywho's watching that, this is not
out of reach of a depot that canservice you.
Right?
We're everywhere.
And that website will connectyou with our sales team and
we'll get each of the rightpeople.
And from there they'll connectyou to whoever you need to talk
(33:35):
to.
I think it's important torealize that I'll say it again.
We can get you any oil that youneed, right?
I mean, what you're getting fromthe bigger US Feed Food Services
or Ciscos or places like that,we get oil from the same places,
right?
It's just not gonna come to youin a jug in a box.
It's gonna come to you in a bulkform.
So we can do all that, but justgo to our website, you'll see
where we're located.
get a rundown.
(33:56):
And as always, I like to makemyself available to every
customer who wants to call andtalk oil because.
Jeremy Julian (34:01):
Yeah.
'cause you're an oil nerd.
You know it's going on, it'sgoing on Your new business card
coming out next, uh, nextquarter.
So well, Ron, I, I genuinely, Imean, I, and I say this every
time, I get to learn new thingsand for me it's always awesome
to sit here on this side of themic and just kind of get to pick
people's brains that this iswhat they do.
I talk restaurant tech all daylong and how you can automate
the front of the house and theback of the house, but I love
(34:23):
listening to people that arereally solving restaurant
challenges.
So thank you for sharing yourexpertise.
Thank, thank you for continuingto, uh, invest in this space
because, uh, I know a lot ofrestaurants and a lot of
consumers at the end of the daybenefit because
Ron Cardwell (34:34):
Well, thank you very much for having me on.
It was a lot of fun.
Jeremy Julian (34:37):
Awesome.
And to our listeners guys, uh,like I said, uh, I know you guys
have got lots of choices.
If you haven't already done so,please subscribe using your
favorite player and make it agreat day.
Thanks for listening to TheRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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