The Hidden Operational Cost of Limescale for F&B Businesses

A small amount of white scale inside a kettle might not seem serious. But imagine the same process happening every day inside equipment that an F&B business depends on for hundreds of orders.

Restaurants, cafés and beverage outlets frequently use equipment that heats water throughout the day. Where hard water is present, calcium and magnesium compounds can gradually form deposits on heating surfaces. The UK Drinking Water Inspectorate identifies scaling as deposits of calcium and magnesium that build up on heating elements over time.

For commercial F&B operations, this can turn water hardness into an operational consideration.

Scale acts as an unwanted layer between the heating element and the water. The Drinking Water Inspectorate notes that scaling can make appliances less efficient and shorten the life of heating elements.

This matters particularly when equipment is used continuously. A café may depend heavily on its espresso machine and hot-water equipment, while restaurants may have several pieces of equipment connected to the water supply.

The problem can also be difficult to notice at the beginning because scale does not necessarily appear where staff can see it. A clean-looking machine on the outside does not tell you what is happening on internal surfaces exposed to heated water.

Research into coffee chemistry also demonstrates why simply removing all minerals is not necessarily the answer. Calcium and magnesium can influence the extraction of compounds from coffee. F&B water management therefore involves finding an appropriate balance between beverage requirements and scale management.

Rather than thinking about water treatment only after equipment develops heavy scale, businesses can include water hardness checks as part of their preventive equipment planning. This content was AI-generated, please review yourself.

References

1. Drinking Water Inspectorate (UK). Water Hardness / Hard Water.
https://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumers/learn-more-about-your-water/water-hardness-hard-water/

2. Hendon, C.H., Colonna-Dashwood, L. & Colonna-Dashwood, M. (2014). The Role of Dissolved Cations in Coffee Extraction. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 62(21), 4947–4950. University of Bath.
https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/publications/the-role-of-dissolved-cations-in-coffee-extraction/