What Your Commercial Kitchen Equipment Actually Costs to Run

Every machine in your kitchen has two prices. The one on the invoice, and the one on your electricity bill every month after, for as long as you own it.

Most operators know the first number to the pound and could not guess the second within a hundred. With hospitality costs where they are in 2026, that second number decides more than people think, including, sometimes, whether the used machine is the right buy at all. This is the honest guide to working it out, with the sums shown.

The Only Two Numbers You Need

Running cost is not mysterious. It is the energy the machine uses, times what you pay for energy. Both numbers are findable before you buy anything.

What you pay. UK micro businesses are currently paying roughly 25 to 30p per kWh for electricity, with small businesses on 23 to 27p, per ExpertSure's July 2026 guide. Gas is far cheaper per unit at roughly 5.9 to 7.6p per kWh, which matters later. Rates are down 40 to 50 percent from the 2022 peak, but still around two and a half times pre-crisis levels, so the machine that was cheap to run in 2019 is not cheap now. Dig out your own bill and use your actual unit rate: every sum below works the same way with your number in it.

What the machine uses. For refrigeration this is printed on the energy label as kWh per annum, because fridges and freezers are labelled like that by law when sold new. For cooking kit, the rating plate gives you the draw in kW, and you estimate the hours it actually works.

Then the arithmetic is one line. kWh per year, times your rate, equals the yearly bill for that machine.

Refrigeration First, Because It Never Clocks Off

Your cooking line works service hours. Your refrigeration works every hour of every day it is plugged in, which is why it dominates the running cost of most small kitchens.

An example calculation, with the inputs shown so you can swap in your own. Say an upright fridge's label reads 1,500 kWh per annum, and you pay 27p per kWh. That is £405 a year, £34 a month, for one cabinet. Say an older, less efficient upright runs at 2,500 kWh per annum: £675 a year. The gap between those two machines is £270 a year, every year, and neither of them looks any different standing in the kitchen.

That gap is why the energy label matters more on refrigeration than on anything else you buy, and it is also why the condition checks below are worth real money rather than being good housekeeping.

When the Used Machine Is the Wrong Buy

This is a used equipment marketplace saying this, so read it as it is meant.

Sometimes the cheap old cabinet is a false economy. Take the example above: if a tired fifteen year old upright is £300 to buy but runs £270 a year dearer than an efficient one, it has eaten its price advantage inside eighteen months and costs you money every year after. On refrigeration, which runs constantly, an old inefficient machine can genuinely be the wrong buy against a newer used one, or occasionally against new.

The honest rule: on kit that runs 24 hours a day, buy the newest and most efficient machine you can afford, and let age matter less on kit that only works service hours. A ten year old six burner range wastes almost nothing by being ten years old. A ten year old fridge might be costing you a week's takings a year without you ever seeing it as a line item.

That is not an argument against used. It is an argument for buying used the way the trade does: on the label, the badge and the condition, not the price alone. Our guide to used commercial refrigeration covers the buying checks in full.

The Condition Checks That Cut the Bill

Twenty five years of fitting and fixing these machines says the same faults quietly inflate the same bills. None of this needs an engineer.

Door seals. A worn seal means the compressor runs to cool the room, not the cabinet. Shut the door on a strip of paper: if it pulls out without resistance, the seal is finished. Seals are cheap and they are the single most common fault I see left unfixed for years.

Condenser coils. The matt black grille where the machine dumps its heat. Furred with dust and flour, it cannot dump heat, so the compressor works longer for the same result. Brush or vacuum it monthly. It is a five minute job that most kitchens have never once done.

Siting. A fridge jammed against the fryer, or a coldroom condenser boxed in with no airflow, works harder every hour of its life. Give refrigeration air, and keep it out of the sun and away from the cooking line where the layout allows.

Thermostats. A cabinet running colder than it needs to is burning money for nothing. Check the actual temperature against the setpoint with a probe, not the display.

Lids, curtains and night blinds. On display refrigeration, fit the night blind and use it. An open-fronted display cabinet is the hungriest machine per litre in the building.

Gas Kit, and Why the Trade Still Loves It

Look back at those unit rates: electricity at 25 to 30p per kWh, gas at 5.9 to 7.6p. Per unit of energy, gas is roughly a quarter of the price.

That is the plain economic reason the trade still runs gas ranges, and it changes how you read a machine's rating plate. A 6kW electric appliance and a 38kW gas range are not comparable numbers on a bill: the gas machine's energy is far cheaper per unit, and it only burns at full rate with everything lit. If you are weighing a gas range against electric for the same job, do the sum at your own unit rates before assuming either way, and if the choice is live in your kitchen our gas to electric guide covers the switch properly.

One caution the other way: gas kit carries its own fixed costs, the annual gas safety work among them, so the unit rate is not the whole story. It is, though, the biggest part of it.

The Checklist for This Week

• Find your actual unit rate on your last bill, electricity and gas
• Read the kWh per annum figure off every refrigeration energy label you have, and do the one line sum
• Paper test every door seal in the building
• Brush or vacuum every condenser coil, and put it in the diary monthly
• Probe each cabinet against its setpoint
• Fit and use night blinds on display refrigeration
• Before the next purchase, price the running cost gap between the machines, not just the tickets

BUY • SELL • SAVE

The second price tag cuts both ways. It is the reason a tired old cabinet can be dear at any price, and it is the reason a well kept, efficient used machine with its label, its badge and its service history is the best value in the building. Know the number before you buy, and the used market is where the bargains genuinely are.

Ready to Buy or Sell?

Browse the marketplace for used commercial catering equipment, or if you are replacing hungry kit with something more efficient, the old machine is still worth money to a kitchen that runs it fewer hours: list it on CaterBids. The first 100 listings on the platform are free, then it is from £5, and there is no cut of your sale either way.