Kitchen Equipment: Multitasking Skills

Burger King’s new energy-efficient broilers allow it to cook at different settings for different products.

By Christine Zimmerman, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 10/1/2007

Broilers are traditionally one speed and one temperature, which doesn’t necessarily add up to energy efficiency. But Burger King has expanded its broiler category with its newly developed Flexible Batch Broiler, which allows for multiple products to cook with varying times and temperatures.

The new broiler reduces each unit’s energy consumption by about 40 percent each month, says Senior Director of Equipment Development Jeff Cook. They also make the QSR a better place to work because they reduce kitchen temperatures by 15 degrees, he says.

Retaining Heat

Unlike a typical broiler, which has an open pit using a constant gas-on supply, the Flexible Batch Broiler has an enclosed, sealed cook chamber that traps and maximizes heat. On-demand technology allows the lower burners to cycle off and on. The top infrared burners support the cooking cycle, based on what products are cooking. Temperature-sensing controls maintain a consistent cooking temperature.

“The benefit of the enclosed chamber is that that it controls the ambient temperature of the box,” Cook explains. “It’s not expelling hot gases off of a vent system.”

Burger King began development of the Flexible Batch Broiler in May 2004 to have a new platform for expanding the broiler category, reduce complexity and create a lower lifetime cost of ownership.

“Our units have been using the same equipment for 50 years, so obviously new technology was going to be met with reservations,” Cook says.

But it’s an easy sell when you can demonstrate savings. Burger King has been field-testing metered units, seeing savings of 40 to 45 percent per unit, per month.

Ready for Prime Time

The company completed rollout of the broilers June 30 to its 800 company stores, “taking the initial risk,” Cook says. Now Burger King is making the technology available to franchisees. Because the company does not mandate company-developed equipment, the proprietary broilers, which use patent-pending technology, are elective. But the company wants to move everyone to flexible broiling by the end of the decade, Cook says.

While Cook won’t share the price of the Flexible Batch Broiler, he will say that the company is getting close to its goal of one-year return on investment.

“The restaurant industry is in a better position today to think about energy and being a good corporate citizen,” Cook adds. “You can actually see it’s economically efficient.”

Check out how Pizza Fusion is saving money by taking the hot air from its pizza ovens and converting it into heat for its units. Read Energy Boost.