Commercial Catering Equipment Maintenance: Smarter Strategies to hit every SLA

Smart Maintenance Starts with the Right Data

Smart maintenance is all about preventing faults, rather than fixing them once the worst has happened. This proactive approach to maintenance comes in 2 forms:

Preventative maintenance: carrying out maintenance tasks based on a regular schedule.

Predictive maintenance: using real-time insights to intervene when there are signs equipment is about to break.

Core to both approaches is data. Data allows you to monitor performance, identify patterns or trends, and make informed decisions about how to keep equipment in tip top shape. Without accurate data, you risk losing visibility of when checks need to be performed, worn parts replaced, and regulatory CP42 certificates signed off, which can cost you and your customers dearly.

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Planned Maintenance Strategies That Actually Work

Maintenance planning and scheduling is about what work is needed and how it will be carried out, as well as who’s going to do it, where and when. Done right, planned maintenance will help you increase wrench time, so your engineers spend more hours servicing equipment and less time chasing parts and paperwork. Not to mention reducing the number of emergency callouts, and improving your SLA performance with more first-time fixes.

So what does an effective maintenance strategy look like?

Segmenting Equipment by Risk and Usage

Not all catering equipment is created equal – or used equally. For example, ovens only need to be on during service, whereas fridges and freezers must work 24/7 without fail. Therefore, rather than schedule periodic servicing for everything, your maintenance strategy should look to prioritise servicing based on asset usage.

Also, think about the impact each asset has to the business if it were to fail. For example, a broken dishwasher poses a food safety issue, which is likely to result in the kitchen being closed. Whereas a POS system failure is a pain, but staff can switch to paper-based methods to keep the business open. 

Aligning Schedules with Site Downtime

Hospitality is one industry where it’s easier to predict demand, due to daily lunch/dinner time rushes, and seasonal peaks, like Easter and Christmas. By planning maintenance around busy periods, you reduce any disruption and ensure the kitchens are able to handle the additional workload.

Automating Recurring Visits

When you’re performing regular maintenance visits, rather than responding to emergency callouts, it’s easy to pop appointments in the diary. Better still, if you use software to help enhance this process, you can get a 360° view of customer care and a complete view of the account history. From details about the equipment to the customer’s SLA, special pricing and more, you can tailor your service with personalised insights, so every customer feels individually valued.

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Improving First-Time Fix Rates in Catering Environments

Did you know…catering equipment downtime can cost businesses up to 10% of their sales each month, and 70% of kitchen staff cite faulty equipment as their main source of stress?

To keep your customers happy, we need to avoid unplanned downtime, which means keeping their equipment in full working order at all times. A key metric to track here is first-time fix rate (FTFR), because if you can take care of a problem there and then, your customer can crack on without you needing to return.

So what do you need to know to improve your chances of a first-time fix?

Pre-visit Checks & Diagnostics

Sounds simple, but if you’re unsure of the problem your engineers are walking into, there’s a good chance they won’t be prepared to fix it. With advanced visibility of the asset, you can see a detailed record of the parts and job history, which helps you to quickly identify what’s likely to be wrong and why, so you can send the best engineer for the job.

Parts Planning for Mobile Engineers

But your engineer needs more than skill – they need the right parts too. Full visibility of the asset means they can take appropriate new parts with them, because they have a good idea of what’s wrong.

But what about emergency callouts?

They’re easier to manage too! With full visibility of the asset, you can quickly assign the right engineer to the job based on real-time data about their location, skill set, and van inventory.

Engineer Field Tools

Which brings us nicely to the next point. If your engineers don’t have the necessary parts in their van, a mobile app will help them locate parts across multiple depots. The app centralises your inventory to provide a unified view of stock levels, so they can reserve/order parts online. 

With Service Geeni’s mobile app, your engineers will have everything they need in the field – from the ability to accept jobs and view detailed instructions, to capturing images, logging time, and raising quotes.

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Common Pitfalls FSMs Face with Commercial Kitchen Equipment

In our experience, there are 3 common problems when it comes to commercial kitchen equipment maintenance:

1. Incomplete Service Records

38% of field service engineers say incomplete information is their top challenge, and half of organisations struggle to meet their customer SLAs because of it. Without full visibility of where assets are and what condition they’re in, you’re always on the back foot – and that’s likely to affect your FTFR.

2. Over-Reliance on Reactive Jobs

Engineers spend 80% of their time on reactive maintenance, and organisations that rely heavily on reactive maintenance experienced 3.3x more downtime. It creates a vicious cycle as more downtime means more emergency callouts, which in turn breeds more problems. For your team, this constant fire-fighting leads to increased stress, burnout, and the desire to seek out new opportunities – and that’s going to affect the existing skills gap.

3. Missed Regulatory Checks 

By law catering equipment needs a CP42 certificate issued every 12 months. Failure to obtain one can result in fines up to £6,000, imprisonment for up to 26 weeks, and manslaughter charges if safety hazards lead to casualties.

And then there’s food safety legislation, which is dependent on fully functioning equipment. For example, Food Hygiene Regulations state foods should be kept at or below 8°C for cold storage/display and at or above 63°C for hot holding. While the Food Standards Agency mandates that “all items, fittings and equipment that food touches must be kept in good order, repair, and condition”, because effective maintenance allows organisations to clean properly and keep pests out. 

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Why Asset-Centric Maintenance Gives You the Edge

Asset-centric maintenance is all about considering the servicing requirements for each piece of equipment, rather than looking at the kitchen as a whole. It’s what allows you to service based on usage and risk. 

When you build service schedules around asset management, it means you record detailed parts and job histories to fully understand the equipment’s lifecycle, performance, and profitability. As well as track each asset’s usage, enabling you to optimise maintenance and safeguard long-term value. 

For your customers it results in more consistent kitchen operations, better compliance with H&S standards, and longer equipment lifespans. While you benefit from:

Easier tracking: because you can see every job and parts history, which informs your maintenance schedule.

Better forecasting: because you can identify patterns in the data, such as fluctuating temperatures, which indicate a fault is imminent. 

Stronger compliance: well maintained equipment keeps your customers compliant, which is going to help you meet contractual obligations and SLAs.

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Going Digital: Ditching Spreadsheets and Legacy Systems

For smarter servicing for catering and refrigeration assets you need a field service management (FSM) platform to help automate maintenance scheduling, support real-time F-Gas tracking, and enable faster engineer response times to urgent repairs. Without it, your team is wasting 25% of their time chasing parts, completing paperwork, and going to jobs they can’t complete – costing you BIG time. Plus, any manual processes are prone to human error, which is going to cause you even more problems.

With an FSM platform like Service Geeni, you can help your customers keep on top of equipment breakdowns that lead to stock loss, service delays, and costly downtime:

Automated scheduling: never miss an opportunity to intervene and keep ovens and prep stations operational, and fridges and chillers F-Gas compliant.

Asset registers: prevent minor issues escalating into major breakdowns by tracking service and parts histories, monitoring performance, and identifying trends.

Parts and job tracking: match engineers to jobs automatically based on priority, skillset, and location, as well as digitise records to eliminate paperwork.

Engineer performance insights: get a real-time snapshot of key metrics to identify inefficiencies that could help improve your FTFR.

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Final Word: More Control. Less Chaos. Better Service.

When equipment maintenance is your business, you want to do whatever’s possible to make your maintenance plan as smart as possible. Choose FSM software, and your business instantly benefits from:

• Streamlined planned and reactive maintenance workflows
• Improved engineer performance and FTFR
• Simpler management of parts, service histories, and compliance documentation
• The ability to scale efficiently without losing visibility or service quality

See how Service Geeni helps FSM businesses simplify scheduling, improve FTFR, and stay compliant – all in one platform.

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FAQs

How often should catering equipment be serviced to meet UK compliance?

Every piece of catering equipment should be serviced in line with its usage, risk, and manufacturer’s guidance. However, as a rule of thumb:

• Monthly: gas checks, water filters
• Quarterly: fridges, chillers, dishwashers
• Bi-annually: ovens
• Annually: gas certification

What's the most common cause of repeat maintenance visits in commercial kitchens?

There are actually two! The first issue is overheating ovens and the second is refrigeration units with fluctuating temperatures. Left unaddressed, both have the potential to shut the kitchen down and land you in hot water with the regulators.

How can FSM software improve first-time fix rates?

FSM software enables businesses to better manage all the factors driving FTFR, because it captures and maintains an extensive set of constantly changing data including:

• Engineer skillset
• Van stock
• Parts inventory
• Locations and routes
• Customer contract requirements
• Planned and reactive service visits
• Asset status data
• Contract SLA’s and more

What documentation do engineers need for CP42 gas safety compliance?

To legally carry out commercial gas work and issue certificates in the UK, engineers must be Gas Safe Registered and have completed a qualification through the nationally Accredited Certification Scheme (ACS).