Ask any commercial kitchen operator what maintenance costs them and most will think of the last big breakdown. The more useful question is what the breakdowns cost that they never see coming, the lost covers, the emergency callout premium, the food thrown away when a walk-in fails overnight. Planned preventative maintenance, almost always shortened to PPM, is the contract model built to reduce exactly those costs. This guide explains what a PPM contract is, what it should cover, and how to judge whether one is worth it for your kitchen.
What PPM actually means
A PPM contract is an agreement for scheduled, recurring service visits, rather than paying an engineer only when something breaks. Instead of reacting to failures, an engineer visits on a fixed schedule, typically quarterly, biannually or annually depending on the equipment and how hard it is worked, and carries out the manufacturer-recommended maintenance that keeps appliances running and compliant.
The word to hold onto is preventative. The point is to catch the descaling, the worn seal, the drifting gas pressure and the blocked condenser before they become a mid-service breakdown.
What a good PPM contract covers
Coverage varies, but a solid commercial kitchen PPM schedule usually includes:
- Combi ovens and ranges: descaling, cleaning of steam generators, seal and door checks, calibration, and gas soundness testing where applicable.
- Warewashers and dishwashers: descaling, checking and calibrating detergent and rinse-aid dosing, wash-arm and filter inspection, and checking water temperatures.
- Refrigeration: condenser cleaning, refrigerant and pressure checks, door-seal inspection, and temperature verification for food-safety records.
- Fryers: thermostat and safety cut-out checks, and inspection of gas or electric heating systems.
- Extraction and ventilation: fan and interlock checks (note that grease duct cleaning to the TR19 standard is often a separate specialist job).
- Gas interlock systems: verifying that the gas supply is correctly tied to extraction airflow, which is a genuine safety-critical function.
A well-written contract also produces documentation for each visit, service sheets and temperature records, which is valuable for environmental health inspections, insurance and due diligence.
What PPM does not usually include
Read the contract carefully, because two things are commonly excluded or charged separately:
- Parts. Many PPM contracts cover labour and the scheduled visits but bill parts on top. Some offer parts-inclusive tiers at a higher price.
- Emergency callouts and reactive repairs. A PPM contract may give you priority response and a preferential labour rate, but the breakdown visit itself is often separate from the scheduled maintenance fee. Clarify whether emergency cover is included, discounted, or extra.
Neither is a problem, but you need to know which model you are buying so the quote is comparable between firms.
How PPM contracts are priced
Pricing depends on the number of appliances, their type, how hard they are used, and your location. As a rough shape of the market, a small independent kitchen might see a featured maintenance package in the region of £99 per month, which works out around £1,188 a year. Larger or multi-site operations are usually quoted per appliance or per site.
Compare that against reactive costs. A single emergency callout and repair can run £200 to £350, and a major refrigeration or combi failure £400 to £800 or more, before you count the covers lost while the kitchen is down. Two or three avoided breakdowns a year can pay for the contract on their own.
PPM vs pay-as-you-go: how to decide
Pay-as-you-go reactive repair can make sense if you run a single, lightly-used kitchen with newer equipment under manufacturer warranty. A PPM contract tends to win when:
- You run high-utilisation equipment, combi ovens and warewashers in daily heavy service.
- Downtime is expensive: a busy restaurant, a hotel, a care home or school where you cannot simply stop serving.
- You have compliance and record-keeping obligations that scheduled service documentation helps satisfy.
- You operate multiple sites and want predictable, budgeted maintenance cost across all of them.
For multi-site operators in particular, a single PPM schedule across every kitchen is usually both cheaper and easier to manage than a patchwork of local callouts.
Questions to ask before signing
- Which appliances and which specific tasks are covered on each visit?
- How often are visits, and can the schedule flex around your service times?
- Are parts included, or billed separately?
- Does the contract include emergency callout cover, and at what response time and rate?
- What documentation do I get after each visit?
- What is the contract term and notice period, and can I cancel?
- Is the firm Gas Safe and F-Gas / REFCOM registered for the relevant work?
The bottom line
PPM is not about paying for visits you might not need. It is about converting unpredictable, expensive, badly-timed breakdowns into a planned, budgeted cost, and generating the service records a modern kitchen needs anyway. If your equipment is worked hard and downtime hurts, a maintenance contract almost always pays for itself. If you are choosing an engineer to provide one, our companion guide, How to hire a commercial catering engineer, covers the qualifications and questions that matter.