MAEKO / How it works / 05 · oil is the hard part
The composting cycle · step five of seven

Oil is the hard part.

Oil needs a conversation. Use the accepted-materials list for your model. Tell us about a heavy oil load before the system is specified.

Sticker: weigh it first
Line drawing: one cutaway composting bed under two different loads. On the left the bed is open and airy, with gaps between the pieces. On the right a heavy pour of oil comes down into the chamber and lies over the same bed as a smooth unbroken skin: the pieces beneath it are still whole but packed tight with the gaps closed. Speedo, the culture, sits half-sunk in the oil. 05
05 · oil is the hard part

The same bed under two loads. A heavy oil load can slow the process.

What actually happens

Speedozyme is a live culture. It works by eating, and fats are food — but a stream carrying a lot of oil slows the culture down. A heavy oil load needs to be assessed before loading. The digestion simply takes longer, and a machine sized for your kitchen starts to behave like one that is too small.

Oil that arrives inside ordinary food waste is not that stream. The film on a plate scrape, dressing on a salad, fat off a joint. Ordinary food waste containing oil can be accepted; tell us about concentrated oils and fats separately.

So a kitchen that fries all day is a different case from one that does not. It is not a harder machine to specify, just a different one. The heavy oil comes back at every service rather than once a week.

So the answer is not a simple yes or no. It depends on your menu, and we ask before we quote, not after the machine is installed.

The offer, as it stands
Tell us what you cook and we will tell you which way to go.
Line drawing of a commercial kitchen line at the end of service: at the left a twin-tank deep fryer with a wire basket lifted onto the rail above it and long slow strands of oil running off it back into the tank; in the middle a stack of used plates and a chopping board with trim; at the right a tall bin of mixed food scraps standing on a platform weighing scale whose round dial carries tick marks and a needle but no numbers, with Speedo sitting on the edge of the scale platform.
Both halves of the oil question, in one room. What you cook is at the fryer; how much of it you throw away is on the scale. The dial is blank because the figure that matters is your own.
For the kitchen

What it means on your floor.

Ordinary mixed waste → a composter

Small amounts of cooking oil arrive with the food. Follow the loading guidance for your model; concentrated oil and grease need a separate assessment.

A heavy oil load → a separator first

Our separators split kitchen wastewater into three streams — water, oil and food waste — before any of it reaches a composter.

Not sure which you are → that is normal

Your menu and a week of waste records help us understand the oil load. A paid site audit measures and assesses the waste over a minimum of two working days.

Planning for an oily waste stream

Before loading oily waste.

  • How much oil is too much depends on your menu. The acceptable load depends on the machine, the materials and the operating schedule. We assess it for your site.
  • What we can tell you is the route. Ordinary mixed food waste can go to the appropriate composter. A heavy oil stream may need a separator first. Which one you are depends on your own waste, not on an average. So the oil question and the sizing question are answered by the same week of weighing.
  • A separator is a second machine, not a setting. It is bought, plumbed and maintained separately, and it is why a heavy‑oil kitchen is a bigger conversation than a light one. Include its installation and maintenance in the system plan.
The oil question

Two questions, one week of weighing.

Send us your menu and any waste records you have. We can advise whether you need a SEPARATOR ahead of your composter. Start with the free weighing guide, check the acceptance guide, or ask us on WhatsApp.