How to choose the right commercial kitchen supplier

There are close to 100 catering suppliers on the Danish commercial kitchen equipment market, plus the many foreign suppliers. Some are specialists while others have the entire range of catering products. It can therefore be difficult to distinguish them from each other.

Service and experience are actually the crux of the matter in the industry, regardless of the type of business you need equipment for. It is only when a product breaks that you can really see the difference between the suppliers and their set-up. This is where some find support in the fact that they have bought a more expensive product while others will be upset that they have bought too cheaply in the situation.

Once your business is up and running, you depend on your equipment not being down for too long. Every day that goes by without essential machines like ovens, refrigerators, and coffee machines results in lost revenue and dissatisfied customers.

For example:

  • If your oven breaks, you can't cook hot food.
  • If your fridge or freezer breaks, you risk having to throw away raw materials.
  • If your dishwasher breaks down, you'll have to do a really big wash by hand.
  • If your mixer breaks down, you have to stir things by hand.

Therefore, there are some products where it makes perfect sense to buy some proper equipment, and then perhaps save money in other areas that are not as critical to your business.

A good rule of thumb is that the more important the equipment in question is to your core product, the better it should be.

Types of suppliers

Specialists

Specialists are experts within one product group. It could be refrigeration, coffee, bakery, dishwashing, butchery, stainless steel and more. They have a great deal of knowledge within a specific area and also have a large service apparatus and spare parts to back it up. If you use specialists, however, you will not be able to obtain a comprehensive discount, as if you combined all purchases from one commercial kitchen retailer. In addition, you will have to juggle several different companies and contact persons and keep track of deliveries that arrive at different times.

Generalists (total supplier)

A large part of the industry is generalist. This means that they cover a wide range of product categories and are capable of delivering total deliveries without necessarily being experts in the individual products. Some have a large service organization behind them, others do not. Some have dedicated project departments that can draw, others do not. Customers often choose a generalist because it is easier to buy everything in one place, and they can therefore often get better prices.

Foreign webshops

There are now a handful of foreign (often German) webshops that have entered the Danish market, where the website has been translated into Danish. Typically, they do not have a physical Danish department, but are managed from, for example, Germany or Sweden, where there is a country manager responsible for sales. The goods are therefore also shipped from the country in question with a delivery time of just a week.

You can often find the same types of goods at these webshops at a much lower price, but these are also primarily goods that they themselves have produced in China. This means that there is no well-known brand on the goods, and you have to trust that those who import it carry out some form of control over the production.

Delivery times are often longer from foreign shops, and if something happens to the product, you often have to wait a long time for a spare part and are not necessarily covered as well as you are at home. So it is a gamble if you choose to buy a product from a German supplier, and it often depends on a balance between price, quality and subsequent service.

Danish webshops

The commercial kitchen market has seen an increase in the number of pure webshops in recent years. They do not have a store or their own warehouse. Instead, they have dropshipping agreements with Danish importers and manufacturers who stock and ship the goods for the webshop. In other words, they only buy the goods from the supplier when they have a customer.

The characteristic of many of these types of retailers is a slightly longer delivery time, they have an address in a private home and they often have an extremely large product range. They often sell the products cheaper than others because their cost level is lower, but sometimes also have more difficulty in providing the same high level of service because they do not have the same control over the product as the other providers.

Webshops are a good place to shop when you need a few items, or if you need to set up a small commercial kitchen that you don't need much advice for. These include coffee shops, street food and small cafés.

Remember "købeloven" when you buy B2B

It must be remembered that in commercial sales there is freedom of contract. Therefore, a commercial kitchen retailer can disregard the Danish Sales Act ("købeloven").

Spare parts warranty (12 months – mandatory)

It is required to provide a spare parts warranty for 12 months. This is done as follows:

  1. Your equipment breaks down.
  2. You contact the supplier with the model number or type plate.
  3. They will send you an exploded view (a sketch with all the parts of the machine separated).
  4. You point out the spare part you need and note the number of the spare part.
  5. The supplier will send you the spare part free of charge.
  6. You will therefore be responsible for troubleshooting and installing spare parts yourself.

Warranty (full warranty covers hourly wages and spare parts)

  1. Your equipment breaks down.
  2. You contact the supplier.
  3. They either send a man over or have the equipment come by their workshop (if it is smaller equipment).
  4. They will repair the fault for you free of charge within the warranty period.

Unless you are technically trained, most people will be a bit helpless if they only have a spare parts warranty. If you have to call a technician, he will cost both travel, call-out and hourly rate. Often it will cost at least DKK 1,500 excluding VAT. If he does not have the spare part, it must first be ordered and a new service visit must be set up. Another DKK 1,500 excluding VAT, for example.

In addition, it is important to remember that the warranty only covers normal use of the product. That is, use of the product for what it was made for. Lack of cleaning, incorrect use, blown fuses in the electrical cabinet, incorrect connection, consumable parts (a light bulb, for example) are usually not covered.