Citron Hygiene: Helping you with all your Warewashing Questions

Updated on October 2, 2022

At Citron Hygiene we have spent 40 years working with our clients to achieve and exceed the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene. Some of our favourite clients are those that run businesses in the restaurant and food service industry. Whether you have worked in a restaurant or not you can certainly appreciate the amount of dishwashing required to keep restaurants running efficiently. To be grammatically correct the term for washing dishes and other items in restaurants or other places with large food preparation (anything that takes place outside the home) is called “warewashing”.

Warewashing 101

The term warewashing has been around for decades. There are two types of warewashing.

Automatic Warewashing

Automatic warewashing might be something most people think of how restaurants take care of their wares. In the earliest days of commercial restaurants and food preparation dishes, glassware, pots, pans and utensils were washed by hand. Fortunately, nearly 50 years ago in Oklahoma, two ingenious men developed one of the first warewashing systems for commercial use. Their system was designed to dispense chemicals using gravity by hanging the glass bottles of liquid upside down! They also used a pressure wash system and rinse feature for each load of dishes which revolutionized the warewashing industry. Fast forward to 2020 and modern warewashing machines are in nearly every restaurant in operation. Warewashing machines are also referred to as dishmachines. Dishmachines can come in very different styles and options: undercounter units, upright models, conveyer systems and flight machines to name a few. At Citron Hygiene, depending on the size and scope of your restaurant or food service business, we can advise you on what best system to use and how we can provide the appropriate solutions and detergents.

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Manual Warewashing

Manual warewashing is simply the manual technique of washing dishes; while time consuming and not as efficient, nearly every restaurant will attest to the fact that they still have items that need to be hand washed. Whether it’s a piece of equipment that doesn’t fit in your unit, or delicate glassware that you would prefer to be washed by hand, manual warewashing still has a place in our modern world.

The Basics

There are a few basics when it comes to warewashing no matter what equipment or solutions you are working with. When considering which process to go with we advise our clients to consider the volume of wares they will be needing to clean. Are you a restaurant that serves 400 people a night? Are you a catering service that serves 3,000 during a busy event? Or are you a small café that serves 80 people a day? All these questions can lead you to the answer of what you need to work with. Time is another important consideration for your business. If you are a busy bar that rotates through its glassware very quickly you are going to need a system that works fast. When we work with clients to determine the long-term costs of their warewashing system we also discuss the factors of temperature and which detergent they want to work with – these two things in tandem can deeply impact the cost of your operations. It’s also important to identify which items will be washed by hand and which items will be put through your warewashing system.

How Citron Hygiene Can Help You with Warewashing

At its essence warewashing, whether it be automatic or manual, produces the same important result – the production of clean wares for re-use. If you’ve ever been to a restaurant and received your meal on a plate that is less than sparkling, then you understand the importance of a proper cleaning system for the food industry. At Citron Hygiene we can help your operation identify the best detergents and other solutions you should use with the equipment you have. We are always researching the newest products and pass along this expertise to our clients. It’s important to note that the detergent you use for automatic or manual warewashing is quite different and it’s important to identify the correct product. Not only is it important for the wares you are cleaning but it’s even more important for the safety of your staff. Automatic warewashing solutions tend to be much more corrosive as they are stronger than manual washing detergents as they work in a fraction of the time. When using manual washing detergents, while milder, staff should still wear gloves.

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At Citron Hygiene we also advise clients on perhaps the most important aspect of warewashing: sanitization. Cleaning is efficient in removing surface matter from your wares, but it doesn’t sanitize items. Sanitization often happens in the rinse cycle during the automatic process. We offer our clients a range or products that sanitizes items and kills the majority of bacteria, viruses and fungi. It is very important that you choose the right solution during the rinse cycle – these products are thoroughly tested by government agencies and Citron Hygiene only works with items that have passed rigorous consumer testing.

Watching the Bottom Line

Citron Hygiene knows how much hard work goes into starting, building and maintaining a business – we have been in business for over 40 years and we pay the same attention to our client’s bottom line as we do our own.

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The expense of running a restaurant, catering or other food service business can be costly. It is estimated that warewashing can account for nearly 20% of a restaurants total operating costs. When you work with Citron Hygiene, we work from the outset to see how we can keep your warewashing costs down. While not in the restaurant industry ourselves we understand the cost of labour and how the cleaning of your establishment and wares can throw off your labour budget and increase overall costs. We create efficient solutions with our products to have your business accomplish their cleaning goals as quickly and as cost-effective as possible.

The chemical costs related to warewashing can be expensive – some companies try to sell you products that can be diluted and stretched thin. At Citron Hygiene we don’t recommend this practice – diluting chemicals can be dangerous and it definitely won’t lead to fully sanitized wares.

Whether you are a brand-new business in the food industry or are thinking of starting a related business we encourage you to give us a call so we can work with you to develop a warewashing system that will be perfect for your business. At Citron Hygiene we are experts in all aspects of keeping your business clean. Our products deliver at the highest level and will never let you down.

Find out how we can elevate your washroom experience today.

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