Phoenix Journal · Ductwork
A multi-site cleaning contract repeats the same terms across every kitchen you run, so the clauses you fix at the table decide your control, evidence and protection for years. Here is how to negotiate them well.
Multi-site contracts
A multi-site cleaning contract is not one deal - it is the same deal repeated across every kitchen you run, so a weak clause you accept once is a weak clause you inherit everywhere.
Whether you operate a handful of restaurants or a national estate, the negotiation is where you decide how much control, evidence and protection you keep hold of for the next few years. Get the frequencies, the reporting and the escalation right on paper and the day-to-day almost runs itself. Leave them vague and you will spend the term chasing certificates you were promised and cannot find. This is a practical walk through what to fix before you sign.
Treat these as your negotiating agenda. Anything a supplier resists here tends to reappear as a problem later.
The strongest thing you can bring to the table is your own data. Before you invite tenders, get an independent view of the current state of each system - honest deposit readings, photographs and a note of where access is missing. When you can describe the estate precisely, you stop buying a generic package and start buying the exact work each kitchen needs. It also protects you from the two classic multi-site traps: paying a flat rate that overcharges your quiet sites and underserves your busy ones, and accepting a frequency that looks tidy on paper but leaves a heavy-use extract running four months between cleans.
Frequency deserves particular attention because it is where fire risk and money meet. The figures in TR19 Grease are minimums tied to how many hours a day the kitchen runs, and they exist for a reason - extract fires remain one of the most damaging events a commercial kitchen faces, and the grease that feeds them builds up fastest where cooking is heaviest. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the responsible person must keep equipment subject to a suitable system of maintenance, and a documented cleaning regime is how you show you have done that. Negotiate the frequency around real usage, not an average of the whole estate, and write in the right for the supplier to recommend more frequent visits at any site the readings show is running hot.
Insist that verification is the product, not an afterthought. Anyone can send a van and a pressure washer; what protects you is the paperwork that proves the system was actually clean when they left. That means WFTT or DTT readings against the 200 micron threshold, matched before-and-after photographs, a note of any panels they could not open, the system drawing showing what was covered, and a signed certificate naming the technician. If a fire is ever traced back to your ductwork, this is the file that keeps an insurer paying the claim rather than declining it for want of evidence. A supplier who treats reporting as a chore is telling you something about how the visits will go. It is worth reading the small print here as carefully as the price, because the strength of your position after an incident lives in the contract terms that protect you on a cleaning job.
On price, resist the pull towards the lowest headline number. A rate that only works if corners are cut will show up as skipped ductwork and thin reports within a year, which is precisely the failure mode you are trying to design out. Look instead at value across the term. Pin down how prices move - a capped CPI or RPI adjustment is far easier to live with than a vague right to review - and build in a benchmarking checkpoint so you can test the deal against the market without having to retender the whole estate. If the incumbent's staff transfer under TUPE, get those costs on the table early, because inherited terms can shift the real price of the contract well before you have signed anything.
Finally, negotiate for one throat to choke. Multi-site contracts fail most often on governance, not on cleaning ability - work falls through the gap between sites and no single person is accountable. Ask for a named contract manager, a standard audit template applied identically everywhere, and a monthly report that rolls every site up so you can see patterns at estate level and act at estate level. Consistency of standard across locations is the whole point of buying centrally, and it is worth as much as the price to an operator juggling the wider job of managing food safety across a multi-site operation. If the supplier cannot describe how they will keep every kitchen to the same line, they are quoting you for several separate contracts wearing one cover sheet.
Questions
Set it by how many hours a day each kitchen actually runs, not by an estate-wide average. TR19 Grease points to roughly quarterly cleaning for heavy use of 12 to 16 hours a day, half-yearly for 6 to 12 hours and annually for 2 to 6 hours. Write the frequency into the contract site by site, and keep the right to increase it wherever survey readings show a system running hotter than expected.
Ask for a post-clean verification report for each site and visit. It should include before-and-after photographs from matching positions, WFTT or DTT readings confirming grease is below the 200 micron mean average threshold, a note of any access limitations, the system drawing showing what was cleaned, and a hygiene certificate naming the date, site and qualified technician. This is the file your insurer and fire authority will want to see.
Replace any open-ended right to review with a defined indexation clause, for example a CPI or RPI adjustment capped at a stated figure. Add a benchmarking checkpoint partway through the term so you can test the deal against the market without retendering the whole estate. If staff transfer under TUPE, get those inherited costs on the table before you sign, as they can change the true price.
Multi-site cleaning contracts tend to fail on governance rather than on cleaning ability, with work slipping through the gaps between sites because no one owns the whole picture. A named contract manager, one standard audit template used identically everywhere, and a monthly report that rolls every site up together keep the estate to a single standard. Without that, you are effectively buying several separate contracts under one cover sheet.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Phoenix surveys and cleans kitchen and building ductwork to the TR19 standard - measured, cleaned and certificated, UK-wide.