Pre-prepared products – the smart way to add value to your menu

In these days of rising labour costs, declining margins and the ongoing staff and skills shortages, foodservice professionals are increasingly looking to pre-prepared, readymade ingredients and products as a means of cutting down prep time and boosting the bottom line.  And thanks to technological innovation, more and more of these products are available at a comparable to from scratch quality. In this article Foodservice Rep looks at two examples.

The science of sous vide

The first is the commercial application of sous vide cooking. Sous vide (French for ‘under vacuum’) is a cooking method in which food is placed in a plastic pouch and slow cooked in a water bath at precisely regulated temperature – a process which retains moisture in the food while preventing overcooking.

“It’s actually quite a modernist technique, one which was quickly adopted by the molecular gastronomy practitioners because of the precision of the cooking method,” says John Jordan, Marketing Manager of The Meyer Food Group, the biggest dedicated manufacturer of sous vide menu solutions in the country, and the only one to have engineered its own equipment.

John joRdan (L) and the team at Meyer food group

The company is a family owned business founded by twin brothers Nicholas and Michael Meyer, as John explains: “Nicholas saw sous vide in action at a trade show in the US and decided to try to bring it back to Australia. He was lucky that Michael was an engineer, so rather than have to import the expensive production equipment from abroad Michael was able to build it from scratch here. To this day we still use the equipment designed by Michael, which over time has been modernised and perfected.

“The longer you cook at lower temperature, the more moisture you retain in the food, and the more nutrients too”

“Through that we’ve been able to take the sous vide concept, which originated in high end restaurants, to the mass market, using a no-shortcuts approach – we slow-cook in water baths in the traditional manner, for up to 24 hours. Not many suppliers do it for that length of time, but the fact is the longer you cook at lower temperature, the more moisture you retain in the food, and the more nutrients too.”

Pork Bao BUns using Meyer Food Co.'s Asian Pork Belly

Sales Director Alex Meyer adds, “We use a special cryovac pouch which allows for the safe cooking of the product – a great deal of what we do is 100 per cent pure slow cooked proteins with nothing added, but we also have value added lines in which we sous vide the protein in the pouch with other functional ingredients such as rubs, sauces and seasonings. Once it’s cooked we then rapidly chill it and it’s delivered to our end-users in the pouch ready to reheat and serve. It’s a very natural approach with no need for preservatives and additives - because it’s cooked under vacuum for so long you get an extended shelf life of up to 12 weeks storage in the fridge, which is remarkable.

“Sous vide is a very safe way of cooking, which makes it ideal when serving meals to vulnerable populations, such as in health and aged care. In those sites you need to make sure you’re chilling and reheating properly – quite often you’re cooking meals to serve the following day. Pre-prepared sous vide cuts down all that prep time and labour cost – you buy in the product, then you can reheat and serve in a fraction of the time it takes to prepare from scratch. And because it comes fully cooked and vacuum sealed, you’ve eliminated any raw meat contamination risks in the kitchen.”

“You buy in the product, then you can reheat and serve in a fraction of the time it takes to prepare from scratch”

This approach also makes portion control easier, John points out. “We portion to exact amounts per plate, so you can have a product that’s made to your specifications: no knifework required, just heat, plate up and serve.”

Alex says the market for pre-prepared sous vide has grown massively over the past few years. “Even five years ago it was far less prevalent, though it was still extremely popular. It’s growing especially in QSRs, who want to reduce their labour overheads. They need to cut down their staff headcounts but at the same time retain consistency and quality, and that’s where sous vide comes into its own. There wouldn’t be a QSR out there serving protein that’s not aware of it – there’s also pubs, clubs and restaurants who are driving a lot of market growth as they’re looking to scale their businesses without cutting quality.”

Meyer FOOD Co.’s Pure Beef Short Ribs

Constantly innovating

Meyer Food Group has long been at the forefront of sous vide innovation, one example being its grilled chicken which was developed initially as a bespoke product in response to customer demand. “That came about from a customer requesting caramelisation on our product, which you can’t do in a closed wet environment like sous vide,” Alex explains. “So we grill the chicken first – our grilling machine gets up to 700 degrees and is capable of searing and barmarking, then we seal the product in the pouch and sous vide it so you get the best of both worlds: all the flavours associated with cooking on the grill, the beautiful visuals of the barmarks, and then the slow cooked aroma when you open the pouch. Hot and fast cooking can’t give you the attributes that low and slow does in terms of tenderising and retaining juices, so this is the best of both worlds.

“We’re constantly innovating on behalf of our QSRs and foodservice customers who have scale. We have about 100 projects in development at any one time and a dedicated new product development team of four branded Meyer Food Lab, who are constantly looking at trends and developing solutions which are ready to go, so when a customer comes to us with a particular request we can usually turn around a solution pretty quickly.”

“Commercial sous vide is also the ideal method for such contemporary styles as American barbecue”

John adds, “You don’t necessarily need to develop a product from scratch, because we have a range of tried and tested, ready to go products developed specifically for foodservice, which anyone can go onto our website and order through their distributor. Our products have national reach through the majors like Bidfood and PFD.”

Commercial sous vide is also the ideal method for such contemporary styles as American barbecue. “A barbecued brisket, for example, is difficult to get juicy and tender every time using the traditional approach – you can easily mess it up – but with sous vide you can ensure that level of tenderness. We pre-treat the meat through cold smoking to infuse that smokey flavour, then seal it in the pouch and sous vide. The meat actually marinates in the smoke while it’s cooking - you end up with a premium, consistent quality piece of meat that comes ready-smoked and is never dry.”

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Alex emphasises that utilising commercially produced sous vide can reduce your overall cost of foodservice meal production. “If you picture a plate of schnitzel, steak, whatever it may be, around 30 per cent of the cost of producing that plate is food; yours may be 25 per cent or 35 per cent, but that’s a well-known rule of thumb.

“What we say to foodservice operators is: rather than put pressure on your suppliers to reduce food costs, you should focus on the 70 per cent – that is, be smarter with your inputs like labour and yield costs, streamline your kitchen operations. Any foodservice businesses would be far better off focusing on that than cutting food costs alone, because once you do you get cheaper quality inputs that cost more to turn into finished goods, so it’s false economy.

“Sous vide isn’t cheaper than cooking raw meat from scratch, but your business can be far better off taking advantage of the process, and we’ve proved this time and again. It might be that the pub or club doesn’t need to start people at 8am to cook their roasts because it takes so much less time to reheat sous vide and serve. You can actually save your business considerable money by being smarter about the ingredients you buy.”

Cut down on prep time while ensuring consistency

Another example of how pre-prepared product can enhance your business bottom line comes to us from Hormel Foods Corporation, which imports Bacon 1 Perfectly Cooked Bacon, a fully cooked, naturally hardwood smoked product from the US designed cut down on prep time while ensuring consistency on the plate. 

Hormel Foods Foodservice Sales and Marketing Manager for Australia and New Zealand Jason Twist says the product was launched here in the first quarter of last year and has proven a great success. “It originated about nine years ago in Minnesota – one of the large Midwest colleges was cooking up about 50,000 breakfasts a week and they ran into production issues, so they approached Hormel Foods, which is a very well-known US foodservice brand, for a fully cooked product.

“It is a patented three-step cooking process and the technology doesn’t exist over here, so we import it from the US”

 “It took a couple of years to develop – it is a patented three-step cooking process and the technology doesn’t exist over here, so we import it snap-frozen from the US. Hormel has several varieties but the one we’re bringing in is premium hardwood smoked which is a great choice as chefs can use it as is or add their own distinctive touches.”

HOrmel Bacon 1 - PeRFECTLY cooked Bacon

Jason has been out to the factory where the product is produced and says “it’s a very impressive process when you see it firsthand – the bacon rashers start out around 50 to 70cm long and by the end of cooking they’re about 11cm long. You can take them straight out of the pack from the chiller, reheat them on the grill for about 45 seconds or put in the oven for 90 seconds. You don’t even need to flip them as they’re precooked and will heat all the way through. Then you let them rest for a little bit and they’ll become both crispy and moist.”

He attributes the success of the product to the fact that bacon is known for being difficult to cook consistently. “There’s usually a lot of variation due to equipment and staff, or whether it’s lain out flat or overhung during cooking. I always say everyone loves bacon unless they have to cook it themselves or wash up afterwards! Whereas the benefit of this product is it comes on a sheet of oven paper with eight rashers per sleeve, so you just yank that out and it’s ready to reheat.”

“I always say everyone loves bacon unless they have to cook it themselves or wash up afterwards!”

The distinctive flavour profile is a further selling point. “It’s hardwood smoked with a little sugar, and much more flavoursome than traditional bacon, which in Australia tends to be quite salty. The consumer will get a really delicious taste and the textures are crispy and moist.

“Everyone who’s sampled the product at multiple tradeshows over the past 18 months has gone ‘wow, that’s delicious, it’s the best bacon I’ve ever tried’, and when they learn it's been reheated on a little grill for 40 seconds their mouth drops and they go, ‘oh my gosh!’

Hormel Bacon 1  with an avocado brunch bowl

“I actually think the timing of our launch couldn’t have been better, given a lot of foodservice operators are still struggling with the staff and skills shortages, not to mention rising costs.

“The biggest challenge for us is that the market is so used to buying raw product per kilo, whereas this is a finished product, so if they compare cost per kilo it’s like comparing apples with oranges.

“The benefit is obvious in that the work has been done for you, the mess has been eliminated, and even from a storage point of view, if you’re used to buying 100kg of raw bacon each week you’ll only need to buy and store 30kg of our cooked product.

“For people who understand cost per serve and factor in the total cost of operation, these sorts of products may look premium priced at first glance but they will actually provide a better result and a cost savings as well.”