Refurbished Commercial Kitchen Appliances

Ask what is worn and what is broken. Worn means the wear and tear components — blades, sharpening stones, belts, seals, gaskets, elements, bowls and discs. Those are ordinary parts, they are not expensive, and replacing them is normal maintenance on any machine, new or refurbished.

Broken is a different matter. A motor that has been run hot, a cracked gearbox housing, a seized shaft or a control board that is no longer made can cost more than the machine is worth, and on some imported models the part is no longer available in Australia. Always call us and ask about the exact model before you buy, particularly if it is an older machine or a brand you don't see often.

A slicer blade gets smaller every time it is sharpened, because each sharpening takes a fraction off the diameter. After enough sharpenings the blade sits too far back from the gauge plate to cut cleanly. If the machine leaves ragged edges or tears the meat instead of slicing it, and adjusting the gauge plate doesn't fix it, the blade has reached the end of its life.

The sharpening stones wear too, and they are cheap, as is a replacement blade on the common models. Check the carriage as well. It should slide the full length smoothly with no rocking or grinding, because a worn carriage track is a far bigger job than a blade.

Always buy the same brand of blade and stones as the machine to guarantee compatibility. Noaw, Van Berkel, Anvil, Birko and Yasaki all offer slicers with parts readily available in Australia.

Check the bowl, the lid and the safety interlock. Bowls crack and craze, lids get chewed by the discs, and the interlock is what stops the machine running with the lid off. Do not buy a machine with a worn or bypassed interlock, and do not let anyone in your kitchen run one that way.

Then check the blade and the discs. A dull blade in a bowl cutter turns mince into paste and takes twice as long doing it, so ask what is included and what has been replaced. Discs are sold separately on most machines, and a Robot Coupe or Hallde with a full set of slicing and grating discs is worth considerably more than the same model with a single disc. Listen to the motor as well, because a failing bearing sounds like a rumble and that is a genuine repair.

Elements and thermostats, mostly, and both can be replaced. Check the vat closely. A pan with heavy pitting or a weep at a seam is not worth repairing, and that is the one fault to walk away from. Baskets bend and the mesh wears through, and replacement baskets are easy to get.

A gas fryer with sooted-up burners, or an electric one with a tired element, reaches temperature and then drops as soon as frozen product goes in, and it takes too long to recover. Filter the oil daily whatever you buy, because clean oil carries heat far better than oil full of carbon, and filtering is the cheapest thing you can do for both your oil bill and your recovery time.

Ask about the sealing bar and the pump. The bar carries a heating wire and a strip of tape over it, and both are consumables, so bags failing to seal along part of the bar usually means nothing more than that. The chamber lid gasket is the other cheap part, and a perished one gives a poor vacuum however good the pump is.

The pump is the expensive component. On an oil pump machine, ask when the oil was last changed and whether it has been run with a filter, because a pump run on dirty oil loses vacuum and does not recover. Orved, Sammic, Apuro and Webomatic are among the brands REO offers refurbished. If you are sealing wet product, say so when you call, because that changes which model suits you.

Every machine is inspected and tested before it is sold, and anything with a guard, an interlock or an emergency stop is checked as part of that. Warranty terms are shown on each product page and depend on that unit's condition, history and age, so a near-new machine and one that has done ten years of daily service will not carry the same cover.

Train your staff on the machine properly and keep the guards fitted. Most injuries on slicers and processors happen with the guard removed or the interlock defeated, and no warranty covers that. If a machine arrives without a manual, ask us, because we can usually supply one for the model.

Most benchtop equipment — slicers, processors, sealers, blenders, small fryers — runs from a standard 10 amp plug. Larger electric fryers and some of the production machines need 15 amps or three phase. Power requirements are shown on each product page, so check them before delivery day.

Gas is a different matter. A gas fryer, kebab machine, pasta cooker or salamander has to be connected and commissioned by a licensed gasfitter, and it has to be set up for the gas you actually run, because natural gas and LPG need different injectors. Book that in before the truck arrives, and check what sits above the machine as well, since a lot of gas equipment needs a canopy over it.

There is no set figure. On the large production machines the saving against new can be substantial, because they cost a lot to begin with and most of the parts on them can be replaced. On small benchtop equipment the saving is smaller, simply because the machine didn't cost much new. REO prices these machines sharply, and comparing a refurbished machine with the new equivalent is the quickest way to see it.

You can rent as well. Silverchef Rent-Try-Buy lets you pay a rental on the machine instead of buying it outright, claim the payments as an operating expense and keep your cash in the rest of the fit-out. That suits a machine you have not proved yet, such as a granita machine or a slicer, because you can buy it out later or move up a size once you know what the venue needs.

Buy the spare wear and tear components with the machine. A second set of slicer stones, a spare seal bar tape, an extra bowl or a spare element costs very little on the day and saves a week of downtime later. If a machine takes discs or plates, buy the ones you will actually use rather than making do with the set it came with.

Then think about where the machine will stand. Heavy benchtop equipment needs a bench that will not move under it and a power point within reach that is not shared with half the kitchen. REO also offers stainless steel benching and mobile stands, refurbished cooking equipment for the ranges, ovens and chargrills that go with it, and food warmers and microwaves as they become available.