The prior sales company, known as Sani-Floor, LLC, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has been dissolved.

Chief Executive Officer James G. MacLean, recently announced the appointment of David Draper as President and Chief Operating Officer of Sani-Floor, Incorporated and the move of their corporate operations offices to Ellsworth, Michigan.  All production engineering, manufacturing, distribution and customer service will be handled through the Michigan office.  Sani-Floor Incorporated home offices along with Research & Development of new products will remain in California.

“This is an exciting time for Sani-Floor, Incorporated” said Draper. “With a new sales structure for our unique products plus a substantial number of new products currently under development for rapidly expanding world markets, the future appears very bright.”

Allowing grease and other oils into the drainage system causes a lot of damage, especially if you consider that larger restaurants may produce up to 40 gallons of grease a week!  Generally, grease traps or interceptors are suggested or required for any establishment that could cause blockage or hinder sewage treatment with the amount of grease that goes through their drain. 

Grease traps, or interceptors, separate the FOG (fats, oils and greases) and solids from the water by employing simple gravity:  the FOG floats and the solids sink, so the water is free to exit in the middle. The technology behind grease traps has remained relatively unchanged for over 100 years, so despite their inherent simplicity the traps work efficiently (95-98%) when properly cleaned and maintained.

Once the greases and solids are separated, they have to be removed from the interceptor on a regular basis to keep the trap working properly. This process is imperative because the separation efficiency decreases as the trap fills. If the trap is entirely full, no separation is occurring at all, rendering the trap useless. The type and size of interceptor used, as well as the FOG output from the restaurant help deter mine how often the trap must be cleaned. 

In other words, simply having a grease trap is not enough. Despite requiring grease trap installation to keep sewage systems clear, cities can still face costly damages from sewer blockage and backups due to grease trap buildups.

Property and sewer system damages have prompted many cities to develop new ordinances enforcing regular cleaning and maintenance of grease traps. Some regulations also designate the specific equipment and drains that must have a trap. 

In many cases these regulations come with a fierce set of teeth.  You break it, you buy it, cities are saying. Owners may be required to pay for cleaning the systems, clearing blockages and/or repairing damages caused by improper maintenance of their company’s interceptor(s). Cities have also stepped up inspections to catch the problem before the damage is done. Maywood, N.J. and Stockton, Calif. are just two of the cities across the United States implementing grease trap laws.

The Grease Trap series will continue with the differences and benefits of available intercepts, environmental impact and trap installation and close with design and operation tips!

The restaurant industry has been criticized for not taking greater strides in trying to find ways to make employees more comfortable, especially when it comes to foot-related pain.

Restaurant employee Molly Buckley participated in a focus group gathered by the National Restaurant Association to offer perspective on this issue. An excerpt from Buckley’s guest writing on an HR website offers a glimpse as to why some restaurant executives may be balking at footcare solutions and what this approach does for employee morale:

One particular Director of HR for a particular restaurant chain said, “Yes, so we invest this money in making our people more “comfortable,” but what is the return on investment (ROI)?” I suddenly felt that my position was no longer important. Sure, you invest time and money in your employees, but … when I think of ROI I think of money spent on advertising dollars and good marketing, not employee morale and well-being.

The issue is not simply about being “comfortable.” Each year there are as many as 120,000 work-related foot injuries and two million sick days taken for foot and leg disorders. When you consider that the average person’s feet bear an equivalent to several hundred tons each day, it’s really not that surprising.

What is surprising is that despite absenteeism, worker injury and lower productivity, a perceived lack of ROI still prevails.

• To help FCSI-The Americas Division Design and MAS consultant members stay informed and on top of their game through education, and
• To promote the value of consultant expertise to operator clients

FCSI The Americas Quarterly, mailing in February, May, August and November, reaches 4,000, including the full FCSI-The Americas Division membership, allied members and operator clients from the noncommercial and commercial sectors.  For more information, including the 2010 Editorial Calendar, go to www.fcsi.org, click on The Americas and look for FCSI The Americas Quarterly.  Editor Beth Lorenzini says content ideas are welcome for the publication’s many departments; you can reach her at zini2001@gmail.com.

To get started, here is a list of strategic reasons why you should include social media in your customer and audience outreach programs.  But don’t take our word for it; look around online and you will run into countless examples of each of the following as they pertain to your company and your industry.

1. Social media is very measurable, even more so than some traditional media marketing.  So much so that it’s possible to adjust and improve upon your approach based on nearly real-time response rates.  And many interactions can be tracked all the way from initial touchpoint to close of a sale.  It doesn’t get any better than that.
2. Social media is flexible and customizable.  Your brand can take on as many customer touchpoints as your company is able to manage effectively.  Social media is useful for multiple functions within an organization, not just marketing and PR.  Product managers, customer service, senior executives and junior staff can all play a strategic part.
3. It’s possible to deploy many social media-based strategies for less money and better results than traditional approaches.
4. Social media allows you to expand your customer base and establish deeper connections with your existing customers, increasing loyalty and building an army of brand ambassadors.  This is accomplished through the use of personality and storytelling in lieu of hard-selling and one-way information pushes.
5. Your competition may already be using social media, shaping the industry discussion or possibly even telling your story for you – in a way you would not necessarily appreciate.
6. Your employees are already using social media, maybe even on your behalf, without your oversight or knowledge.  It is possible to leverage their knowledge, their personal and professional networks and their savvy to increase your company’s reach in a positive way.
7. Your customers are definitely online and many are actively using social media, searching for information and support.  They need someone to give it to them.  Add value to their search, and they become advocates, not just customers.

People prefer to interact with other people, rather than with faceless brands and companies.  True, a strong brand can offer the promise of certain human traits or aspirations, attributed to the brand by both advocates and critics.  But only a select few brands have been successful at establishing a s sustainable, personal connection with their audiences.  Social media makes this possible in ways other media forms only wish they could.  You just have to be ready to share your brand’s story in an engaging way and listen and respond to what people have to say about it.

Comet Branding LLC is a marketing, branding and public relations firm that helps companies and brands leverage both traditional and social media to better connect with their customers.  We offer customized strategic planning, training and implementation services to clients in wide variety of industries.  www.cometbranding.com

You are welcome to continue doing business directly through us here at the factory where we are happy to assist you with your drawings and layouts.  It is our intention to provide you with the tools and services necessary to make doing business with Sani-Floor extremely simple.