Unless you own or run a restaurant that specializes in low-fat, exceptionally healthy food, you are likely making good use of a simple, universal truth of cooking: fat carries flavor. Whether you’re deep frying French fries, basting a fine steak, or making a dressing, sauce, or vinaigrette, you are relying on oils, butter, bacon grease, and other sources of fat to make your restaurant’s food shine.
However, this inevitably leads to leftover fats at the end of the day. You often can’t reuse it, either because processes like deep frying damage the oil’s structural integrity, or, failing that, because of food contamination issues. And although you can dispose of most of the oil safely, your dishes will still have films of grease on them, which can build up in your pipes when they’re washed away.
This is where grease traps come in. Grease traps catch sugar, solids, and things called FOG (fats, oil, and grease) before they can enter into the local sewage system. This helps you do your part to keep not only your plumbing working but also the city plumbing that you and everyone else draw from — in some areas, this is even a legal requirement instead of a simple act of civic goodwill.
For restaurants, grease traps can be a great way to save money. This can be achieved not only by potentially avoiding municipal fines, but also by catching FOG, sugars, solids, and other things likely to clog up your pipes before they can cause too much damage.