An Equipment Program Success Story

Café 2400, located in the Charlotte, NC headquarters for Foodbuy and Compass Group USA, serves meals and snacks to hundreds of employees each day. Recent renovations doubled the size of Café 2400’s kitchen bringing the facility to about 1,500 square feet. A 15-member crew prepares all the food and performs all the kitchen cleaning.

At one point the crew used a UniVac® from Kaivac to service the kitchen’s quarry tile floor. After that machine reached the end of its useful life, the team reverted back to traditional sweeping and moping. The change was immediately noticeable.

“I found myself having to ask the workers to repeat the cleaning process several times to get good results. Even then, the quality of the floor’s hygiene was not satisfactory,” recalls Director of Operations Tom Matterface. “No matter what we did the floors just always looked a little off.”

Kitchen staff moral took a hit as well. The team never complained too loudly but without the UniVac the mood definitely shifted. “The UniVac did the heavy lifting for them when it came to generating really good cleaning results,” admits Matterface. “You could tell they were affected by not having the UniVac around anymore.”

So, Matterface and his accounting team found a way to fund a new UniVac for the operation. Kaivac told them to expect the new machine in about 30 days, a bit anti-climactic after all the work it took to get the purchase approved. Then came the big surprise.

“The new UniVac machine showed up later that same week. You would have thought that it was Christmas,” recalls Matterface. “The kitchen staff were literally dancing with excitement and everyone had smiles. It was like getting the best gift!”

And that gift kept on giving. Along with improved morale, the entire kitchen floor immediately looked and felt cleaner. “When sweeping and mopping, you never completely get rid of the water.  It’s just always wet and greasy. You know, tiles have that filmy residue look. A push squeegee can never get the floor dry enough, so you are always spreading that stuff around,” says Matterface. In contrast, he finds the vacuum on the UniVac the most effective feature. “It leaves the floor completely dry and clean.”

Café 2400’s kitchen team also appreciate the tools and attachments that let them detail clean difficult areas like under and around the grill. “These tools are really helpful,” Matterface says.

The UniVac works so quickly that Matterface saves an estimated 30 to 60 minutes of labor each night. “The UniVac frees my people up to clean other areas more thoroughly while some workers are able to clock out sooner,” he explains.

Matterface muses on other ways the UniVac can save money. “In the grand scheme of things there is clearly a savings with having to purchase fewer brooms, laundering mops, and not needing to dump and refill the mop bucket over and over again,” he raves. “The UniVac has become a pretty solid mop bucket replacement for us. Everyone wants to use the UniVac if they can help it.”

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