The Turbo Pot

I’m always on the lookout for real-world examples of how non-utility-cost financial benefits can outweigh utility cost savings. I recently came across a product that has the stamp of approval from many utilities and efficiency organizations for its ability to reduce gas consumption in the restaurant industry. When I looked into this product’s features and benefits, it became clear that utility savings were not necessarily the most important driver for its widespread adoption.
The product is called a “Turbo Pot,” and what differentiates it from the average pot is its thick aluminum bottom into which fins have been milled. You can think of it as the opposite of a heat sink that you might find on a very powerful car stereo amp, which removes excess heat so the amp doesn't cook itself in the trunk of your car. The fins on this pot increase the surface area of the bottom of the pot, which is designed to maximize the pot’s absorption of heat.
When you put one of these innovative pots on a gas burner, you find that water boils 40% faster. From an efficiency standpoint, 40% is nothing to scoff at! Turbo Pot users have the potential to save a significant amount on their utility bill – that is, provided they turn the burner off after the boiling task is done. However, if you look below the surface and consider how restaurants actually use their gas burners, you’ll probably find that too many of them leave their gas burners on throughout the shift – even when there’s no pot atop the burner. Why? Too many cooks don’t want to take the time to extinguish and then re-ignite burners in the midst of busy shifts.
So why do you think some major restaurant chains have standardized on Turbo Pots across the country? Did they do it to save therms? I don’t think so. They did it to speed up the cooking process and turn around more meals in less time.
If you’re in the business of selling Turbo Pots, my recommendation is that you focus on the non-utility-cost financial benefit – the ability to prepare meals more expeditiously rather than the gas savings, which may or may not actually occur given how so many cooks use their burners.
If you’re an energy solutions provider who wants to leverage the Turbo Pot to post savings measured in therms, you’d be wise to bundle the Turbo Pot product with behavior modification training and/or sparking widgets that make it more likely that the restaurant’s gas burners are only blazing when actual pots are sitting on them doing useful work!

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