Catering Equipment Spares: The Check That Decides What Used Kit Is Worth

Every used machine has two prices. The one in the advert, and the one you pay when something inside it fails. The gap

between them is almost always parts.

I spent 25 years in commercial kitchens, fitting them and fixing them, and the pattern never changed. Two machines of

the same age and the same condition can be worth completely different money, and the thing that separates them is

whether anyone in the UK still stocks the bits inside.

The Cheapest Machine in the Advert Is Rarely the Cheapest Machine

A £250 upright fridge looks like a bargain next to a £600 one. Then the thermostat goes, and you find the model was

discontinued years ago by an importer who no longer trades here. No board, no sensor, no gasket, and no engineer

who wants to touch it.

That machine is not cheap. It is a stainless cupboard that cost £250 and takes up 700mm of floor you are paying rent

on.

The £600 machine from a brand with a UK parts network is the cheaper one, because when it fails at 6pm on a Friday,

one gets you cooking again and the other gets you a skip booking.

What Catering Equipment Spares Actually Cost

Most operators overestimate this, which is why repairable machines end up scrapped. These are typical UK trade

prices at the time of writing. They move, so treat them as bands rather than quotes.

• Fridge and freezer door gaskets: roughly £16 to £45 for a common stock size. Bespoke made to measure seals

are quoted per job and cost more.

• Dishwasher and glasswasher elements: commonly £75 to £90 for a standard boiler or rinse element, and up to

around £210 for model specific tank elements.

• Dishwasher wash pumps: around £115 to £290 depending on the machine.
• Combi oven door seals: commonly £70 to £100 across the mainstream brands.

Set against a £600 to £2,000 machine, none of that is frightening. A £45 gasket on a £600 fridge is not a reason to walk

away. Not being able to buy the £45 gasket at all is.

The Eight Year Rule, and the Gap Nobody Mentions

There is a piece of UK law worth knowing before you buy anything cold.

Retained Regulation (EU) 2019/2024 covers refrigerating appliances with a direct sales function: display cabinets,

beverage coolers, ice cream freezers and vending. For those placed on the market from 1 March 2021, the

manufacturer or importer has to keep spare parts available for at least eight years after the last unit of that model was

sold, and deliver them inside 15 working days.

The parts list is specific. Thermostats, starting relays, temperature sensors, printed circuit boards, light sources and no

frost heating resistors go to professional repairers. Door handles, hinges, knobs, dials, buttons, door gaskets, trays,

baskets and racks go to repairers and to end users directly.

Here is the gap. Professional refrigerated storage cabinets, which is the upright fridge and the prep counter in the back

of your kitchen, are specifically excluded from that regulation. They sit under the 2015 rules, which set energy

efficiency, not parts availability. So the merchandiser out front has a legal parts floor under it. The workhorse in the back

does not.

That is not a reason to avoid back of house kit. Most of what we all run is back of house kit. It is a reason to do the

check yourself, because nothing is doing it for you. The same thinking applies when you are [buying used commercial

refrigeration](/blog/used-commercial-refrigeration-guide) generally.

The Five Minute Parts Check

Do this before you drive anywhere.

Get the exact model and serial number off the data plate, not out of the advert. Then search that model number with the

word "spares" and see what comes back. The UK parts trade is well served: Parts Town UK, First Choice Catering

Spares, A S Catering Supplies and Catering Spares TLA between them list most mainstream brands, and the specialist

seal firms cover gaskets.

You are looking for three things. That the parts show at all. That they show as in stock rather than superseded or

obsolete. And that there is a UK phone number attached to whoever sells them. Parts listings genuinely do carry the

word "obsolete" against dead lines, and that word is the whole answer.

Brands with real UK service and parts networks behave predictably. Rational, Unox, Foster, Williams, Hobart,

Winterhalter, Meiko, Lincat, Falcon and Blue Seal all have findable parts and engineers who know them. Unbranded

imports and badge engineered machines are where the trail goes cold, and the trail going cold is exactly what wipes the

resale value. It is worth doing this check on a used commercial dishwasher

above almost anything else, because warewashing runs hot, hard and daily.

If You Are Selling, This Is Free Money

Most sellers list the machine, say nothing about parts, then wonder why the price gets haggled down.

Put the model number, the serial number and one line confirming parts are still available into the listing itself. It removes

the single biggest reason a buyer offers you less than you asked for. A machine with a live parts trail behind it is a

machine a buyer can insure against, and buyers pay for that.

If the typing puts you off, CaterBot does it. Photograph the data plate and it reads the specs, the dimensions and the

delivery details straight off it, so the listing fills itself.

Selling on CaterBids costs nothing when it sells. Zero final value fees, so sell a £2,000 oven and you keep £2,000. You

pay to list, from £5, and that is the whole cost. On a percentage based site the fee grows with the price of the machine.

Here it does not move, which is the difference [worth working out before you list](/blog/commercial-catering-equipment-

selling-fees).

The Checklist

• Photograph the data plate and get the exact model and serial number
• Search the model number plus "spares" before you agree a price
• Check parts show as in stock, not superseded or obsolete
• Confirm there is a UK supplier with a phone number behind the parts
• Price the two or three parts most likely to fail on that machine type
• Ask the seller for service history or a recent engineer's report
• If you are selling, put the model, serial and parts availability in the listing

Used kit is only a bargain while it can still be repaired. Check the parts, price the machine honestly, and the rest is

straightforward. BUY • SELL • SAVE.

Ready to Sell the Kit You Are Not Using?

If you have a machine standing idle with a live parts trail behind it, it is worth more than you think. [List it on CaterBids]

(/post-listing) and keep 100% of the sale.