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Kitchen deep cleaning - energy
Your kitchen's energy bill on its own tells you what you spend, but not whether that is good or bad. Comparing it to similar kitchens - benchmarking - puts it in context: it shows whether you are efficient or wasteful relative to your peers, and flags where there may be room to improve. Here is how to benchmark your kitchen's energy use against peers, and how to act on what it shows.
The short answer
Benchmarking your kitchen's energy use means comparing it against similar kitchens, to see whether your consumption is high, low or about average for a kitchen like yours - context that your energy bill on its own cannot give you. A bill tells you what you spend, but not whether that is efficient: a high bill might be normal for a busy kitchen of your type, or it might be a sign of waste. Benchmarking answers that question by comparison: if your energy use is well above that of similar kitchens - similar in size, type and volume of trade - it flags likely inefficiency and room to improve; if it is in line with or below your peers, you are probably running efficiently. So the value of benchmarking is that it turns your raw consumption into a judgement about efficiency, by putting it in the context of what comparable kitchens use. To be useful, the comparison has to be fair - comparing like with like, adjusting for the things that legitimately drive energy use (the size of the kitchen, the type of food and cooking, the volume of trade, the hours), so you are comparing your efficiency, not just your absolute use, against genuinely similar kitchens. A big kitchen will use more than a small one for good reasons; benchmarking is about whether you use more than you should for your size and type, not more than a smaller kitchen. Once benchmarking flags that your energy use is high for your peer group, the next step is to find where the waste is - and common culprits in a kitchen include inefficient or poorly maintained equipment, and the ventilation, particularly a grease-clogged extraction whose restricted airflow makes the fans work harder for less, wasting energy. So benchmarking is the diagnostic that tells you whether to look for waste (by showing you are above your peers), and the investigation that follows looks at the equipment and the extraction, among other things, to find and fix it. Used this way, benchmarking turns an uninformative bill into a starting point for cutting energy waste.
Key points
Why a bill needs context
The reason to benchmark is that your energy bill on its own does not tell you whether you are efficient - it tells you what you spend, which is a different thing. A high bill could mean you are a busy kitchen of a demanding type, using a lot of energy for good reasons; or it could mean you are wasting energy through inefficiency. The bill alone cannot distinguish these, because it has no context - no answer to the question is this a lot for a kitchen like mine? Without that context, you cannot judge whether your energy use is a problem to address or simply the cost of your operation. So the raw number, however large, is uninformative about efficiency: it is a spend figure, not an efficiency verdict.
Benchmarking supplies the missing context by comparison. By comparing your energy use to that of similar kitchens, it answers the question the bill cannot: are you using more, less, or about the same as kitchens like yours? That comparison turns your raw consumption into a judgement about your efficiency - because if similar kitchens use much less than you, your high use is probably inefficiency, whereas if they use about the same, your use is probably just the cost of your type of operation. So benchmarking is what makes your energy use meaningful as a measure of efficiency: it puts your consumption in the context of comparable kitchens, so you can see whether it is high or normal for what you do. This is the value of benchmarking - not the raw number, but the comparison that gives it meaning. It transforms an uninformative bill into a signal about whether there is waste to find, which is the starting point for doing anything about your energy use.
What benchmarking shows
What benchmarking shows is where your energy use sits relative to your peers - above, below, or in line - and each tells you something. If your energy use is well above that of similar kitchens, it flags likely inefficiency: you are using more than comparable kitchens, which suggests there is waste to find and room to improve. This is the most actionable result, because it points to a gap between your use and what a kitchen like yours can achieve - a gap that represents potential savings if the cause of the excess can be found and fixed. So being well above your peers is a signal to investigate, because it suggests your kitchen is using more energy than it needs to.
If your energy use is in line with or below similar kitchens, it suggests you are running reasonably efficiently - your use is about what a kitchen like yours would be expected to consume, so there may be less easy waste to cut (though efficiency can usually always be improved). This is reassuring, and it tells you that your high bill, if you have one, is largely the cost of your operation rather than waste - so effort might be better spent elsewhere than chasing energy savings that are not there. So benchmarking sorts your energy use into a picture: well above peers (likely waste, worth investigating), in line (about normal, less easy waste), or below (efficient). The most useful outcome is the first, because it flags a specific opportunity - a gap between your use and your peers' that suggests savings are available. So benchmarking does not just measure; it prioritises, showing whether energy waste is a real opportunity for your kitchen or a small one. And where it flags a gap, it tells you it is worth looking for the causes - which is where the investigation of the equipment and the extraction comes in.
Making it fair
For benchmarking to be useful, the comparison has to be fair - comparing like with like - because kitchens legitimately differ in energy use for reasons that have nothing to do with efficiency. A big kitchen uses more energy than a small one; a kitchen doing heavy, high-volume cooking uses more than one doing light, low-volume food; a kitchen open long hours uses more than one open briefly. These differences are legitimate - they reflect the size, type and volume of the operation, not its efficiency - so comparing your energy use to a kitchen very different from yours would be misleading. Comparing a big, busy kitchen to a small, quiet one would make the big one look wasteful when it is simply larger and busier. So the comparison has to adjust for these legitimate drivers, comparing your kitchen to genuinely similar ones, or normalising for size and volume (energy per meal, per cover, or per unit of output), so that what is compared is efficiency, not just absolute use.
This is why good benchmarking compares your efficiency, not your raw consumption, against similar kitchens. The question benchmarking should answer is not do I use more energy than a smaller kitchen? (of course a bigger kitchen does) but do I use more energy than I should for my size, type and volume? - which is a question about efficiency, and requires a fair, like-for-like comparison to answer. So making benchmarking fair means comparing to kitchens like yours, or normalising for the legitimate drivers of energy use, so that a high result genuinely indicates inefficiency rather than just a larger or busier operation. Done fairly, benchmarking isolates your efficiency and shows whether it is good or poor relative to your peers; done unfairly (comparing to dissimilar kitchens), it can mislead - flagging waste that is not there, or missing waste that is. So the discipline of fair comparison is essential to benchmarking being useful: compare like with like, adjust for the legitimate differences, and the result is a genuine measure of your efficiency against your peers, which is what makes it worth acting on.
Acting on it
When fair benchmarking flags that your energy use is high for your peer group, the next step is to find where the waste is - and in a kitchen, some causes are more common than others. Inefficient or poorly maintained equipment is one: old, worn, or badly maintained appliances use more energy than efficient, well-maintained ones, so equipment is a common place waste hides. The ventilation is another, and an often-overlooked one: the extraction and its fans move a lot of air and use significant energy, and when the extraction is inefficient - particularly when a grease-clogged duct restricts the airflow - the fans work harder to move less air, wasting energy. So a grease-clogged extraction is both a fire risk and an energy waster: the restricted airflow makes the system less efficient, using more energy for less effect. This is a place benchmarking-flagged waste can often be found, and one that cleaning addresses.
So acting on a high benchmark result means investigating the likely sources of waste, including the equipment (is it efficient and well maintained?) and the extraction (is it clean, or grease-clogged and working inefficiently?). Cleaning the extraction, for instance, restores the airflow so the fans do not have to work as hard, which can reduce the energy the ventilation wastes - a concrete saving that also serves fire safety and kitchen comfort. So the investigation that follows a high benchmark looks at these common culprits to find the waste the benchmark flagged. This is the practical value of benchmarking: it does not just tell you that you are inefficient, but prompts and directs the investigation to find and fix the waste - and in a kitchen, the equipment and the extraction are common places to look. So benchmarking and the follow-up work together: benchmarking flags the opportunity (you are above your peers), and the investigation finds the causes (inefficient equipment, a grease-clogged extraction) to act on. Used this way, benchmarking turns an uninformative bill into a starting point for genuine energy savings, by showing where to look and prompting the work to find the waste.
The takeaway
Your kitchen's energy bill on its own tells you what you spend but not whether that is efficient - a high bill might be normal for your type of kitchen or a sign of waste, and the bill alone cannot tell you which. Benchmarking supplies the missing context by comparing your energy use to similar kitchens: if you are well above your peers, it flags likely inefficiency and room to improve; if you are in line or below, you are probably running efficiently. So benchmarking turns your raw consumption into a judgement about efficiency, and prioritises - showing whether energy waste is a real opportunity for your kitchen or a small one.
For the comparison to be useful it has to be fair - comparing like with like, adjusting for the legitimate drivers of energy use (size, type, volume, hours), so that what is compared is your efficiency, not just your absolute use. A big, busy kitchen uses more for good reasons; benchmarking is about whether you use more than you should for your size and type. When fair benchmarking flags a high result, the next step is to find the waste - and in a kitchen the common culprits are inefficient or poorly maintained equipment and the ventilation, particularly a grease-clogged extraction whose restricted airflow makes the fans work harder for less. So benchmarking flags the opportunity and directs the investigation, and cleaning the extraction is one concrete way to cut the waste it finds. Used this way, benchmarking turns an uninformative bill into a starting point for real energy savings.
Questions
Benchmarking your kitchen's energy use means comparing it against similar kitchens, to see whether your consumption is high, low or about average for a kitchen like yours - context your bill alone cannot give you. A bill tells you what you spend; benchmarking tells you whether that is efficient, by comparison. If your energy use is well above similar kitchens, it flags likely inefficiency and room to improve; if it is in line or below, you are probably running efficiently. So benchmarking turns your raw consumption into a judgement about your efficiency, by putting it in the context of what comparable kitchens use. It is a diagnostic: it shows whether there is likely energy waste to find, which is the starting point for doing anything about your energy use.
Both are useful, but comparing to peers answers a question tracking your own use cannot: whether your use is high or normal for a kitchen like yours. Tracking your own consumption over time shows whether you are using more or less than before, which is valuable - but it does not tell you whether your level is efficient in the first place. You might be tracking a consistently wasteful level and not know it, because you have nothing to compare it to. Benchmarking against similar kitchens provides that external reference, showing whether your use is high, low or average for your type - so it tells you whether there is a gap between your use and what a kitchen like yours can achieve. So peer comparison and self-tracking complement each other: tracking shows your trend, benchmarking shows your standing.
By comparing like with like - adjusting for the things that legitimately drive energy use, so you compare efficiency rather than just absolute consumption. Kitchens differ in energy use for good reasons: size, type of cooking, volume of trade, and hours all affect it, and a big, busy kitchen uses more than a small, quiet one legitimately. So comparing dissimilar kitchens misleads. Fair benchmarking compares your kitchen to genuinely similar ones, or normalises for the legitimate drivers (energy per meal or per cover, adjusted for size and volume), so that a high result indicates inefficiency rather than just a larger operation. The question to answer is not do I use more than a smaller kitchen? but do I use more than I should for my size and type? - which requires a fair, like-for-like comparison. Done fairly, benchmarking isolates your efficiency; done unfairly, it can mislead.
It flags likely inefficiency and room to improve - you are using more energy than comparable kitchens, which suggests there is waste to find. This is the most actionable benchmarking result, because it points to a gap between your use and what a kitchen like yours can achieve, and that gap represents potential savings if the cause can be found and fixed. So being well above your peers is a signal to investigate the likely sources of waste. In a kitchen, common culprits include inefficient or poorly maintained equipment, and the ventilation - particularly a grease-clogged extraction whose restricted airflow makes the fans work harder for less. So a high benchmark result prompts and directs the investigation to find the waste. It does not by itself fix anything, but it tells you the waste is likely there and worth looking for, which is the starting point for cutting it.
The extraction and its fans move a lot of air and use significant energy, so their efficiency matters - and a grease-clogged extraction wastes energy. When grease builds up in the ductwork, it restricts the airflow, so the fans have to work harder to move less air - using more energy for less effect. So a grease-clogged extraction is both a fire risk and an energy waster: the restricted airflow makes the system inefficient. This is a common, often-overlooked place energy waste hides in a kitchen, and one that benchmarking-flagged waste can often be traced to. Cleaning the extraction restores the airflow, so the fans do not have to work as hard, which can reduce the energy the ventilation wastes - a concrete saving that also serves fire safety and kitchen comfort. So the extraction is worth checking when investigating high energy use flagged by benchmarking.
It can be, because seems normal is exactly the judgement benchmarking tests. Without comparison, you have no real basis for whether your bill is normal - it might feel normal because it is what you have always paid, while actually being high for a kitchen like yours. Benchmarking checks that intuition against real comparison: if it confirms your use is in line with peers, you have reassurance that your bill reflects your operation rather than waste, and can focus effort elsewhere; if it reveals your use is high despite feeling normal, it uncovers an opportunity you would otherwise have missed. So benchmarking is worth doing precisely to test the assumption that your bill is normal - either confirming it or revealing hidden waste. The result is either reassurance or a saving opportunity, both of which are useful to know.
A grease-clogged extraction makes the fans work harder for less, wasting energy - our cleaning restores the airflow, helping close the gap benchmarking flags. Ask us to clean your extraction.
