MAEKO / How it works / 01 · it arrives wet
The composting cycle · step one of seven

It arrives wet.

Speedozyme™, our resident microbial culture, is ready. The chamber is always on standby. Feed it whenever the waste comes.

Patch: mostly water
Line drawing: a hand tipping a kitchen tray of fish bones, vegetable trim and peel into the open hopper on top of a tall upright MAEKO composter, with Speedo the culture waiting on the floor beside it. 01
01 · it arrives wet

The scrape station, before anything else happens.

What actually happens

Food waste is mostly water. That is why a bin of kitchen waste is heavy, leaks, and starts to smell within hours. It is also why it has to be collected so often, and why the bin bay smells even when it has just been washed.

The machine takes the waste wet. Straight off the plate, straight off the prep bench, into the hopper. Accepted food waste can be loaded wet; check any high-oil or unusually large material with us first. Your team separates food from non-food once, at the scrape station, before loading the materials approved for your model.

The machine is installed in a suitable back-of-house area. It stands at the bin bay or the loading area — where the waste ends up anyway — so the cooking line stays clear.

The line to give the scrape station
In it goes wet. Nothing gets drained and nothing gets a second sort — but it is food only. Keep contaminants out.
Line drawing of one back-of-house floor in cross-section. On the left the cooking line: a rack of hanging ladles and pans, a cook at a range with a stockpot, a cook at a prep bench under a shelf of stacked plates, and a kitchen crew member scraping a used plate into a bin at the scrape station, with a trolley of loaded scrap trays beside him. A wall with an open doorway divides the room. On the right, in the bin bay, a second crew member pushes an identical tray trolley toward a composting machine — a plain cabinet with a funnel hopper on top and a blank control plate — beside a floor drain, a part-raised roller shutter and two empty wheelie bins. Speedo, the culture, sits on the hopper rim watching the trolley arrive.
Where the machine actually stands

The cooking line and the scrape station on the left; the machine in the next room, on the right.

For the kitchen

What it means on your floor.

One sort, not two

Keep food separate from contaminants at the scrape station and follow your machine's loading procedure.

Nothing waits to be collected

Loading food waste within the machine's capacity can reduce the time it spends in a bin before treatment.

It lives back of house

Bin bay or loading area, not the cooking line.

Before you load

Before you load.

  • “No second sorting” means no second sort of FOOD. It is not a claim that the machine will take what is not food. Our rule is the shortest one: keep non-food materials out. No cling film, no cutlery, no glass, no foil, no ceramic, no gloves, no cigarette ends, no bleach or sanitiser.
  • Wet is fine. A heavy oil load is a different question. Ordinary oil in ordinary food waste is not a problem. A heavy oil load is. Ask us about your oil load before you choose a machine, not after. That is step 05.
  • Wet is not the same as hard. LIGHT takes soft food waste and small bones. For larger bones and hard shells, HARDSTOCK has an internal crushing chamber. Every machine takes it wet. Not every machine takes it hard.
Before anything is quoted

You already do the sort — now weigh what it makes.

We will review how your team separates waste and where a machine could fit. Our free weighing guide helps you record a typical week; the kitchen acceptance guide covers what to keep out. You can also ask us on WhatsApp before you start.