Restaurant and café disinfection

Kitchen and extraction

In catering businesses almost every problem — hygiene and smells alike — is concentrated in the kitchen and the extraction system.

Grease aerosol settles on the extraction filters, in the ducting and on the nearest surfaces. That residue oxidises and becomes a permanent source of smell that spreads into the dining room as well. On top of that it is a growth medium and a fire risk.

So disinfection in a catering business almost always starts with degreasing. Disinfecting a layer of grease is pointless — the product never reaches the surface underneath it.

If the extraction filter is coated in grease, treating the dining room changes nothing — the source stays where it is.

Critical zones

In practice a few places are left out almost every time. Floor gullies and drains under the boiling pans and in the dishwash area — where organic residue and moisture collect. The inside of the ice machine and the water tank behind the bar. The space under and behind the fridges, where spilled product stays for weeks. And the empties and waste room, which is often the strongest source on the whole site.

The smell in the dining room and where it comes from

If guests complain about a smell in the dining room, it is worth narrowing down the cause before doing any work, because the answers differ.

• A food smell that gets stronger while the kitchen is working — almost always extraction capacity or air balance: the kitchen extracts more air than is supplied to it and makes up the difference from the dining room, in the wrong direction. That is a ventilation question.
• A stale or sweetish smell noticeable even when the kitchen is not working — the source is usually the textiles and soft furnishings in the dining room, which have absorbed food aerosol over years. Treating the source and ozone treatment in an empty room help here.
• A sewage smell — check the floor gullies and the drains used least often first. A dried-out trap is the commonest answer and needs no treatment at all.

More on the mechanism: odour removal.

The type of site also changes the scale.

• A small café with a modest kitchen — usually one evening's work, most of it on the extraction and the gullies.
• A restaurant with a full kitchen, chill rooms and a large dining room — already a non-trading day's work.
• A bar — the weight shifts to the ice machine, the drinks system and the textiles, because the kitchen load is light.
• A canteen with high turnover — the priorities are floor joints, gullies and the dishwash area.

So we set price and time at the inspection, not by what the place is called.

One more thing that affects the result more than it looks: the air balance between kitchen and dining room. If the kitchen extraction pulls more air than is supplied to the space, the system makes up the difference from the dining room, and food smells go exactly where they are not wanted. Treatment does not change that — it is a matter of adjusting the ventilation. If we see it at the inspection, we say so, even when it means less work for us.

When we can work

We work after hours or on a non-trading day. The window in a restaurant is shorter than it looks: after the last guest the kitchen still has to be cleaned down, and deliveries start early in the morning. The genuinely empty period is often a few hours at night, or a whole day if the site closes on one.

• Open product and prepared items must be removed or sealed.
• Crockery, cutlery and equipment must be cleared from open surfaces.
• Machinery must be switched off and cooled down, particularly in the cooking line.
• Extraction filters must be detached if we are treating them separately.
• Time has to be allowed after treatment for rinsing and airing before opening.

How we work

The client is usually the restaurant manager or the owner, and both have the same question: will the site be ready for the next service? So we calculate the time at the inspection and tell you before the work rather than during it. If the site is in a shopping centre or a hotel, we agree access and the alarm with the building's management too.

What most often goes wrong in restaurants: treatment is ordered after a complaint about a smell in the dining room, but the kitchen extraction and the waste area are left out of the scope; the working window is set without counting in rinsing and airing; or treatment is carried out on surfaces that have not been cleaned, so the result looks done but is not.

What we do not do

We do not clean the full ventilation system throughout the building — we treat the filters and the accessible part of the duct, but a duct running through several floors is a separate, specialised job. We do not service or dismantle machinery. We do not write hygiene plans and we do not issue compliance opinions. And we are not a substitute for daily kitchen cleaning — that stays your staff's work, and without it no periodic treatment gives a lasting result.

Prices

Up to 100 m² — €1.20/m², 100–300 m² — €0.90/m². Ozone treatment for odour removal €1.20/m². For regular treatment we prepare a schedule. All prices →