The water-saving UltraRinse attachment makes cleaning produce and thawing proteins quick and easy.Sustainability is more than just a buzzword for restaurants these days; it can also be an effective point of differentiation. “It’s a great way for restaurants to position themselves in the market as a company that really cares about conservation and is doing everything they can to help the environment,” says Liz Hofius, Product Marketing Manager for
T&S Brass & Bronze Works.
Water conservation is one way restaurants are becoming more sustainable, and it has an added bonus, says Hofius: “Any time you can reduce the usage of water, you are saving money.”
One way many restaurants are reducing their water usage is by installing UltraRinse from T&S Brass. Not only does it save water, but it makes the kitchen more efficient and promotes food safety as well. There’s nothing else like the patented UltraRinse available today. In fact, this innovative new product is such a game-changer that it was awarded one of this year’s Kitchen Innovation Awards from the National Restaurant Association.
Very often, kitchen crew will wash produce or thaw frozen food under full running water. Besides wasting water, the force of the water can be tough on delicate produce. UltraRinse changes all that. It’s designed to take care of these jobs while saving water and time. It’s an easy-to-use swing nozzle attachment that fits on an existing faucet. Angled fan tips on the UltraRinse clean produce gently and quickly, and allow for two-handed rinsing. That helps increase kitchen efficiency, Hofius says. “You can use two hands to rinse as opposed to using a pre-rinse sprayer where you would still need one hand for operation,” she says. The gentle spray of the UltraRinse also washes away more particulates and bacteria that traditional faucet sprays can leave behind.
There’s an even bigger reason why using a traditional back-of-house prep sink for rinsing or thawing is problematic, Hofius says. Most of these sinks “have a full-flow outlet on the nozzle. The intended purpose of that is to fill big prep sinks to let dishes sit or do a cleaning procedure,” she says. “These allow for about 26 gallons per minute for flow rate. It’s just not really intended for food prep.” And the sprayers are “designed for spraying gunk off plates and trays. That’s pretty harsh and is going to do damage to produce that can be prone to bruising or shredding,” she says. By comparison, the UltraRinse uses about 1.5 gallons per minute. For operations that are doing a lot of produce cleaning or protein thawing, that difference in water flow can add up to big savings quickly.
UltraRinse is available in two sizes to accommodate both 12” and 18” faucet nozzles, and installs in just minutes.
For restaurants that are really serious about their water sustainability efforts, T&S Brass offers a water audit program. “We analyze water flow across your operation and make recommendations where adjustments can be made, whether that be with repairs, retrofits or updating equipment,” says Hofius. “After these recommendations are made, we can conduct a water audit to assess and compare the impact of these solutions, including the UltraRinse.”
