We spoke with Marc Bober and Doug Brandenburg, founders and owners of Premier Grease, about why they chose to start the company, what they were hoping to accomplish and what makes customers to happy with their service.
Interviewer: If you flip through the yellow pages or open up an internet browser and search for ‘hood cleaning,’ ‘kitchen cleaning’ or ‘grease trap cleaning,’ you get quite a few results. With so many different companies out there doing this work already, what made you guys start this business?
Marc Bober: We heard time and time again from restaurant owners and friends of our who were in the restaurant business that the companies they rely on for clean, sanitary kitchens simply weren’t treating them well.
Doug Brandenburg: Yes. Lots of complaints of rough sales tactics and no shows for service calls. And that’s when these companies would actually pick up the phone! We heard from a number of folks that they couldn’t even get companies to return their calls at all!
MB: We just viewed that as a unique opportunity to start a business, from the ground up, based on the customer.
I: So you saw the opportunity to start a business; what makes you different?
DB: We just fundamentally do business differently. Take our grease recycling programs. See, many of our competitors typically offer about 50% of the going market rate coupled with binding, multi-year contracts. Once the contracts are signed, these companies start to get pretty shady in terms of how payment is determined or how much oil gets paid back. They will downplay the quality of the oil delivered and in general be extremely opaque about how they price. Restaurant owners could end up not making nearly as much money as they could. Many of these other players are huge multi-billion dollar companies who scare local restaurants into keeping their contracts because there is no way smaller restaurants could stand up to these behemoths in court.
MB: Right. Now what we do is different and it’s this type of transparency and customer service that makes us different.
First, we don’t lock our clients into contracts. We guarantee our work and a customer’s happiness. We don’t need contracts. Our clients only keep working us if we’re providing them with quality service. We also do some other things that the other guys won’t. PG will clean the containers for our customers free of charge. Now, we may offer slightly lower rates than other companies, but as Doug said, the rates that those companies offer is almost always reduced.
On top of that, with no contracts, restaurant owners can always leave immediately if they're unhappy.
We view the relationship with our customers as a partnership. We’re transparent, up-front and with no contract, if a restaurant owner isn’t pleased with our service, they are free to shop around.
I: That’s one service - what about your other restaurant kitchen cleaning services?
DB: We offer a number of different cleaning services that can help our customers, both inside and outside the restaurant such as taking care of range hood baffle filters, grease traps, duct vents, and even the roof.
MB: Let’s take baffle filters for example. This is another great example of a service that we offer that I think is really helpful to a lot of restaurant owners. Restaurant managers may save a few dollars by having an employee clean these. They’ll work extra hard - and possibly even in harm’s way - to remove the filters in order to clean them out behind the restaurant causing major messes and even environmental hazards right on site where restaurants are trying to attract customers! Not only does it create a mess but it usually takes up employee overtime and poses massive and needless safety risks.
DB: Most restaurant owners don’t know that it’s a dangerous job. Having an untrained employee remove, clean and replace the filter is hazardous to both the employee and the environment – we hear stories all the time of regular employees handling these issues and getting hurt, maimed, or worse. Further, an incorrectly installed filter can be dangerous and disastrous for a restaurant.
MB: Premier Grease offers a truly unique Hood Filter Exchange program where a trained professional comes and removes your filter, immediately replacing it with a clean one. Then we take your old filter back to our facility where we use an environmentally friendly solution to break down the material stuck on the filter and then we bring that filter back to put it into your range hood. It’s faster and more environmentally friendly!
I: So you’re passionate about grease, huh?
MB: Ha! Well, kind of, yes. We are passionate about serving our customers. We’re passionate about taking care of the tangential things so they can focus on the important stuff - making great food and serving their customers.
Marc Bober: We heard time and time again from restaurant owners and friends of our who were in the restaurant business that the companies they rely on for clean, sanitary kitchens simply weren’t treating them well.
Doug Brandenburg: Yes. Lots of complaints of rough sales tactics and no shows for service calls. And that’s when these companies would actually pick up the phone! We heard from a number of folks that they couldn’t even get companies to return their calls at all!
MB: We just viewed that as a unique opportunity to start a business, from the ground up, based on the customer.
I: So you saw the opportunity to start a business; what makes you different?
DB: We just fundamentally do business differently. Take our grease recycling programs. See, many of our competitors typically offer about 50% of the going market rate coupled with binding, multi-year contracts. Once the contracts are signed, these companies start to get pretty shady in terms of how payment is determined or how much oil gets paid back. They will downplay the quality of the oil delivered and in general be extremely opaque about how they price. Restaurant owners could end up not making nearly as much money as they could. Many of these other players are huge multi-billion dollar companies who scare local restaurants into keeping their contracts because there is no way smaller restaurants could stand up to these behemoths in court.
MB: Right. Now what we do is different and it’s this type of transparency and customer service that makes us different.
First, we don’t lock our clients into contracts. We guarantee our work and a customer’s happiness. We don’t need contracts. Our clients only keep working us if we’re providing them with quality service. We also do some other things that the other guys won’t. PG will clean the containers for our customers free of charge. Now, we may offer slightly lower rates than other companies, but as Doug said, the rates that those companies offer is almost always reduced.
On top of that, with no contracts, restaurant owners can always leave immediately if they're unhappy.
We view the relationship with our customers as a partnership. We’re transparent, up-front and with no contract, if a restaurant owner isn’t pleased with our service, they are free to shop around.
I: That’s one service - what about your other restaurant kitchen cleaning services?
DB: We offer a number of different cleaning services that can help our customers, both inside and outside the restaurant such as taking care of range hood baffle filters, grease traps, duct vents, and even the roof.
MB: Let’s take baffle filters for example. This is another great example of a service that we offer that I think is really helpful to a lot of restaurant owners. Restaurant managers may save a few dollars by having an employee clean these. They’ll work extra hard - and possibly even in harm’s way - to remove the filters in order to clean them out behind the restaurant causing major messes and even environmental hazards right on site where restaurants are trying to attract customers! Not only does it create a mess but it usually takes up employee overtime and poses massive and needless safety risks.
DB: Most restaurant owners don’t know that it’s a dangerous job. Having an untrained employee remove, clean and replace the filter is hazardous to both the employee and the environment – we hear stories all the time of regular employees handling these issues and getting hurt, maimed, or worse. Further, an incorrectly installed filter can be dangerous and disastrous for a restaurant.
MB: Premier Grease offers a truly unique Hood Filter Exchange program where a trained professional comes and removes your filter, immediately replacing it with a clean one. Then we take your old filter back to our facility where we use an environmentally friendly solution to break down the material stuck on the filter and then we bring that filter back to put it into your range hood. It’s faster and more environmentally friendly!
I: So you’re passionate about grease, huh?
MB: Ha! Well, kind of, yes. We are passionate about serving our customers. We’re passionate about taking care of the tangential things so they can focus on the important stuff - making great food and serving their customers.
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