Vikan helps MAX obtain eco-labelled cleaning status

"Eventually, we intend to ecolabel our cleaning processes fully, and Vikan's colour-coding concept has taken us a long way towards this goal. With Vikan's Swan-labelled tools and microfibre materials, we have been able to significantly reduce the use of chemicals in our cleaning. We are very pleased."
Rickard Holm, Chief Operational Manager, MAX Hamburgerrestaurants AB

About Max Hamburgerrestaurants

Operating since 1968, Max Hamburgerrestaurants is the oldest hamburger chain in Sweden. Today, the family-owned company has 86 restaurants across Sweden and approximately 3000 employees. Max recently opened their first restaurant outside Sweden, in the Norwegian city of Oslo.

Challenge

The Max chain of hamburger restaurants have no problems with cleanliness, but were still looking to elevate their cleaning performance yet further above that of their competitors. The company wanted their kitchens, serving areas and toilets to be perceived as among the cleanest and freshest in the market.

Sustainability has long been a vital component of the Max business model; all newly opened restaurants are environmentally certified/eco-labelled. The search was on to find a cleaning solution that was truly sustainable, and could deliver heightened cleanliness using eco-friendly products and methods.

Max was already using colour-coded cloths in the restaurants but, as the tools were not kept in isolated colour zones based on activity, a cloth could easily change hygiene zone without it being noticed or corrected. There was a strong urge at the hamburger chain to change this behaviour.

The cleaning system needed to be simple and easy to implement by all employees, and Max sought a partner who would both challenge their cleaning protocols and train their staff. 

Solution

In choosing Vikan's colour coding system and their Swan-labelled tools to fulfil their demands, Max not only have the equipment to improve their cleaning performance, but they are closer to achieving their goals of reduced chemical use and a fully ecolabelled cleaning scheme.

The Swan Mark is an official Nordic life-cycle perspective ecolabel scheme that guarantees products fulfil stringent environmental and climate criteria in their production, use and disposal at end of life. Vikan's tools deliver to qualifying criteria relating to raw material source, energy and water consumption, use of chemicals, hazardous effluents, and packaging and waste.

All new Max restaurants are now fully equipped with coded-coded utensils, cloths and mops, and the system will be rolled out alongside existing cleaning equipment in the rest of the chain. Both Max and Vikan recognise that, from a sustainability point of view, it would be inappropriate to replace fully operational cleaning equipment before it is worn out.

Max has implemented a fully colour zoned operation where yellow tools are used in the kitchen, blue in the restaurant, red in the toilets and green for the tables in the seated area.
As well as training the employees in the tool use before a new restaurant opens, Vikan worked with Max to create easy-to-understand and informative notes about tool use, which are mounted on the cleaning wagons beside the respective equipment.

According to Richard Holm, Max's Chief Operational Manager, individual tool use is clear and the right tools can always be found in the right place. He also stresses that as the tools are easy to keep clean, hygienic cleaning levels have improved while time spent maintaining the tools is reduced.

And it's not only cleaning performance that Max is achieving; the Vikan solution is helping the company's efforts to embrace workforce diversity, as the colour coding and labelling facilitates the work of people with concentration problems or other dysfunctional memory impairments.