Route Simplified Opens the Market for UCO Sellers and Buyers

Available this July, the all-new, third-party record-sharing portal by Reiter Software will offer a powerful solution for both parties.

For years, U.S. EPA has emphasized the need for detailed records that account for the point of origin of used cooking oil (UCO) to root out fraud. The original fraud problem was oil stolen from restaurants and other businesses that was not traceable. While that’s still a huge problem, now there appears to be skyrocketing import fraud, pertaining to foreign palm oil intentionally mislabeled as UCO. Investigations are taking place in the European Union at the request of Germany to identify fraudulently labeled virgin palm oil. The U.S. is following suit. The American Soybean Association pointed out in April that the EU imported 600,000 fewer metric tons of UCO from China in 2023 than it did in 2022. At the same time, the U.S. imported over 700,000 tons more.

It wasn’t until the past few years though that this issue came to a head in a way that limited options for both buyers and sellers.

Because of the perceived fraud risks associated with UCO, many buyers/producers don’t want to assume the risk of working with sellers who are unable to provide detailed records prescribed by EPA—including the addresses, date and quantity of oil collected from each service location. This limits the number of collectors they can purchase from. Additionally, UCO collectors may be hesitant to share those records with buyers who also operate competing UCO-collection companies and have been known to request audits for the purpose of gaining commercially valuable data. In these cases, the combined buyer/collector acts as both buyer and competitor to the UCO-collection company.

Key Technological Features of Record-Sharing Platforms

In order to solve the growing problems of fraud without damaging the commercial viability of independent UCO collectors, a record-sharing platform must meet certain requirements and contain the following features:

Records cannot be double allocated. After gallons from a particular pickup have been allocated to a particular sale, they must be locked.

Records must be protected from those with conflicts of interest, and only shared with appropriate auditors. Buyers must have analytical tools to assess records quality, such as a histogram of collection volumes in the batch, GPS confirmation data, and the “age” of the included records.

Auditors must be able to quickly review data to identify any loads that need further follow up. By making the auditor’s job easier, audit costs can be decreased.

Sellers need access to the tools necessary to protect their data without creating a liability for buyers.

Both buyers and auditors need access to analytical tools that make insuring compliance easy.

It must not be possible to bulk upload records.

Route Simplified is proud to announce it is offering a solution for both parties: the all-new, third-party record-sharing portal coming this summer in July. Route Simplified will give the collector simple control and access to their collection data while making it easy to share noncommercially valuable data with the customer, and the full unredacted records with approved third-party auditors who are bound by nondisclosure and nonuse agreements.

What Is Route Simplified?

Route Simplified is Reiter Software’s latest iteration of route-building software for UCO collectors. Reiter Software has always been the most powerful tool on the market for UCO collectors, capable of building the most efficient routes possible based on the predicted fill rates of each individual kitchen.

Reiter Software has been a market leader in software designed for UCO collectors since its 2017 release of the Cooking Oil Service Tier. Since the early days of COST, however, the number of users requesting to use the Reiter platform has more than tripled. This growth required Route Simplified to employ new Amazon and Google technologies to keep pace with user growth and expectations.

Ultimately, the second generation of UCO-collection software was launched under a new name: Route Simplified. Leveraging Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s .NET and Google’s Flutter technology positions Reiter’s latest offering—Route Simplified—to remain fast, powerful and stable for decades to come as its use expands not only in North America but around the world.

The Difference

Route Simplified is not a “records-storage system.” Users cannot “upload records” from a spreadsheet into the system— this process is prone to fraud. Rather, Route Simplified is an operation platform designed to improve the operating efficiency of legitimate oil collectors, generating records at the moment of pickup. The only way to create records in Route Simplified is by running routes. This dramatically decreases the likelihood of the upload of bulk, fraudulent data.

What the Portal Does for Buyers

If collectors are using Route Simplified, buyers never have to worry about liability during an audit again. All of their sellers’ collection records will be safely stored in the software at the moment of pickup, ensuring buyers know the records are complete and available. In the event of an audit, all buyers have to do is make a request for the collector to share the unredacted records directly with the auditor.

In the past, buyers could amass a year’s worth of liability before discovering that a seller did not have adequate records. Now, prospective buyers can ask the collector to share data from the very first shipment onward, substantially limiting RIN and LCFS compliance risk. Because allocating and sharing records is easy for Route Simplified users without compromising their confidential business information, there’s little friction in building new buyer/seller relationships. When the data starts flowing between parties, Route Simplified’s proprietary analysis tools make spotting risks quick and easy.

What the Portal Does for UCO Collectors

The software has consistently helped collectors maintain and organize records by collecting pickup dates, locations and volumes in the program, but now collectors will be able to instantly share that data with other parties in a simple, controlled and secure format with just a few clicks.

If collectors need to prove to a new buyer that they have the records the buyer needs without having to share all of their confidential business information, Route Simplified has an answer for that. Users can send a simplified version of their collections data that excludes confidential business information, such as the names and addresses of restaurants. The buyer can use Route Simplified’s propriety fraud-detection tools to gain confidence that the collector is maintaining high-quality, legitimate records.

With Route Simplified, collectors are in full control of their confidential business data—the names and locations of their clients—but the buyer gets a high degree of confidence that the records are, in fact, legitimate.