From Tech to Fryers, Filta Franchisee Bridges the Entrepreneurial Gap

If you’re new to our community and would like to dip into the world of environmental kitchen solutions, click the “subscribe” button. Every other week, we highlight key sustainability issues and share industry insights, expert advice, and articles that help restaurants and commercial kitchens of all kinds become “greener” and more efficient.

Today we feature an expert profile about one of our newer business owners, Max Paltsev, a Filta owner in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. An entrepreneur who spent two decades in the technology space, he says he sees a strong resemblance in Filta’s business model to SaaS (software-as-a-service) because both industries have similar characteristics of B2B, great customer retention, progressive growth, and ongoing expansion potential.

After 20-plus years in SaaS, Max exited his last venture in 2020 and, like so many during the pandemic, took a few years off. Ready to get back into something but not quite sure what, he explored many options, eventually choosing Filta because of our business model and ability to scale. In February of 2023, he took over our Dallas/Ft. Worth territory.

“Filta has so many parallels to SaaS,” Max said. “It’s a B2B business model with recurring revenue and a service offering attractive to both SMB and enterprise customers who see tremendous value in what we do. Not only do they remain as customers, but we are able to integrate more of our service lines and products over time. In SaaS, we call this the ‘land-and-expand’ strategy.”

At Filta, we have built our franchise model around multiple revenue streams because we understood early on that commercial and restaurant kitchens have multiple needs. In fact, our entire franchise offering is built with that in mind. Successful franchisees such as Max can build their core business around our FiltaFry and FiltaBio offerings. These service lines open the door for the introduction of other services such as FiltaDrain and FiltaCool. Later this year, we will also be introducing FiltaSteam across the country, which is a newer line rapidly gaining traction in our test markets.

“By professionally managing our customers’ fryers, we take on a job everyone in the kitchen dreads: cleaning deep fryers and carrying pots of hot used cooking oil to dump into a big stinky waste oil bin. And in the process, we help them realize up to 40% savings on cooking oil, improve food consistency, improve employee morale, and decrease risk,” Max said. “Over 7,000 chefs and kitchen teams around the country trust Filta to do this for them every week, and they couldn’t be happier.”

At the corporate level, Filta’s CEO Tom Dunn sees great potential in the work Max is doing in Texas.

“We always try to help our owners work smarter, not harder,” Dunn said. “What Max is doing down in Dallas/Ft. Worth is exactly the trajectory we’d like all our franchisees to take. When your foot is already in the door and you’ve established trust and are doing great work inside a kitchen, that’s the time to develop, grow and maximize that business – we’re calling it FiltaMax.”

Max currently operates a 10-person, 10-van, million-dollar business with more than 100 customers. His area is very large–about eight million people geographically–so he knows there’s huge room for growth. He currently serves the 37 fryers inside American Airlines Center where the Dallas Mavericks play, the 41 fryers inside Choctaw Stadium (formerly Globe Life Park) where the Dallas Renegades play, and commercial kitchens inside a variety of businesses and hospitals including Charles Schwab, Capital One, Raytheon, Methodist Medical Centers, Parkland Memorial Hospital, and many others.

To contact Max Paltsev directly, email [email protected]. To learn more about Filta ownership and the available territories, contact Rob Totten at [email protected]. To learn more about Filta’s services including fryer cleaning, microfiltration, and waste oil removal/recycling, please call 866-51-FILTA or visit GoFilta.com for 24-hour live chat.