[Speed Gibson,
Wednesday September 21, 2005 at 4:10pm]
American Ingenuity
A saw this in Monday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, a profile of a new local company, Restaurant Technologies, Inc.
This is what America does like no other. A little guy, not some corporate giant, gets an idea, gets some venture capital, and in a few short years is grossing over $100 million a year.
The key ingredient was the idea, to make cooking oil flow through a restaurant like city water and sewer. The problems of handling grease in a restaurant have been around for decades. The technology isn't cutting edge here, just plumbing, valves, hoses and tanker trucks. This idea was available to anyone for at least twenty years, but founder Paul Plooster was the one who finally put this simple need and simple solution together.
This is how the pie expands in America.
This is capitalism at its finest, creating jobs and reducing waste. Restaurant cooks win, not slipping on or being burned by spilled grease. Restaurant owners save money, able to consume oil exactly as needed, not on a bulk schedule. And, they have fewer injury and medical costs. The restaurant's patrons win because the oil is kept fresh, not overly used because it's such a hassle to change. And this company's investors and employees win, of course.
Grease is the word in the fast-food business. French fries, chicken, fish -- many of our favorite foods are fried in it, with the average fast-food restaurant going through 30 to 100 gallons of cooking oil a day.
Disposing of used cooking oil has been the bane of many a restaurant worker: wrestling with tubs of hot oil and emptying them into a smelly trash bin, often with burns and spills along the way.
But ride with Jimmy Micek in his gleaming tanker truck and you can spend a day on grease patrol without getting a drop on your shoes, shirt or pants.
Micek services a route for Restaurant Technologies Inc., an Eagan-based company that has come up with a new technique for what it calls "bulk cooking oil management services."
It's a seemingly simple solution: a fleet of tankers that pump fresh oil through hoses to 200-gallon storage tanks inside the restaurant, then reverse the process to pump out used oil.
This is what America does like no other. A little guy, not some corporate giant, gets an idea, gets some venture capital, and in a few short years is grossing over $100 million a year.
The key ingredient was the idea, to make cooking oil flow through a restaurant like city water and sewer. The problems of handling grease in a restaurant have been around for decades. The technology isn't cutting edge here, just plumbing, valves, hoses and tanker trucks. This idea was available to anyone for at least twenty years, but founder Paul Plooster was the one who finally put this simple need and simple solution together.
This is how the pie expands in America.
This is capitalism at its finest, creating jobs and reducing waste. Restaurant cooks win, not slipping on or being burned by spilled grease. Restaurant owners save money, able to consume oil exactly as needed, not on a bulk schedule. And, they have fewer injury and medical costs. The restaurant's patrons win because the oil is kept fresh, not overly used because it's such a hassle to change. And this company's investors and employees win, of course.