Your local restaurant almost certainly fries in soybean oil

Four companies stock most American kitchens

Independent restaurants do not shop at the grocery store. They buy from broadline distributors, and four of them dominate the market: Sysco, US Foods, Gordon Food Service, and Performance Foodservice. The truck that pulls up behind your favorite local spot every week is almost certainly one of theirs, and the fryer oil, the mayo, and the salad dressing in that truck are house brand products with published spec sheets.

What the spec sheets say

Unlike restaurants, distributors have to publish ingredients. The paper trail is short and one sided:

• US Foods sells its standard Harvest Value Clear Vegetable Frying Oil as 100% soybean oil, right on the product listing, next to a canola frying oil as the alternative.
• Sysco's Classic clear frying oils are canola and soybean blends, and its budget lines include straight soybean frying oil (the Reliance clear liquid soybean fry oil) and cottonseed and soybean blends.
• The default foodservice mayonnaise and most house salad dressings are built on soybean oil. When your sandwich comes with mayo, that is usually the single biggest seed oil source on the plate.

So when a restaurant discloses nothing, the honest default is not a mystery. It is the distributor standard: a soybean or canola fryer, soybean mayo, and soybean based dressings. That is exactly the assumption we document on our methodology page and use for the app's typical preparation estimates.

Why restaurants choose it

Price and shelf life. Soybean oil is the cheapest liquid fry oil in America and it is what the distributor puts in front of every kitchen by default. Switching a fryer to beef tallow or olive oil can multiply the oil bill, which is why the places that do it almost always say so out loud. If your local spot fried in tallow, it would be on the menu, the window, and probably the sign.

The exceptions are the story

Some places do pay up. We track chains that disclose beef tallow on Tallow Watch, keep a verified seed oil free list, and grade over 560 chains on their cooking oils and menus. For everything else, the Is It Seed Oil food guide covers dish by dish what you are likely eating when nobody discloses anything.

What oil do most independent restaurants fry in?

Almost always soybean oil or a soybean and canola blend. Independent restaurants buy their fryer oil from broadline distributors like Sysco and US Foods, and the standard house frying oils those distributors sell are soybean based. US Foods’ Harvest Value Clear Vegetable Frying Oil is 100% soybean oil per its own product listing.

How can I tell if a restaurant uses seed oils?

If the menu or website does not mention the cooking oil, the safe assumption is a distributor standard soybean or canola fryer. Places that pay extra for beef tallow, olive oil, or avocado oil almost always advertise it, because it costs them more.

Which restaurants do not fry in seed oils?

A small but growing list. Some chains disclose tallow or olive oil, and Seed Oil Tracker keeps a running list of verified seed oil free restaurants and a Tallow Watch page for chains that fry in beef tallow.