My distributor is recommending that I shred my own cheese, which he advises I’ll save about $80-$100 per week. I’m considering it, because I don’t think it’ll affect labor, since there’s always free time between lunch and dinner. Besides the initial cost of buying a shredder attachment, are there any other considerations I should know about?
The one thing that come to mind is storage. I shred my cheese directly into the tubs that go into my table. I do about 100lbs a day and yes it does save money.
I’d love to do it also, I just want to have diced cheese.
The attachments I a familiar with shred only.
Is there a way I can dice cheese in my small pizzeria ?
Otis
I love my shredded cheese - it allowed me to create my own blend, which is a contributor to our unique quality and flavor. You cannot compare the freshness of in-house grated cheese.
The downside is consistency - some people will shred with different pressure, or the cheese will sit for a bit during a rush and be shredded when softer - so you get thickness variation. This makes portion controlling your cheese more difficult.
Sometimes, with a thicker shred, a pizza won’t LOOK right with the right weight on it. Know what I mean?
Just something to prepare for - but I think you get better quality and better pricing if you shred your own.
is there a dicer made for a small pizza shop, ie, 200 pounds per week ?
Otis
What size diced are you using? Nemco makes one that dices 3/8" cubes, but I think that might be too big for pizza.
Is there an advantage to using diced vs. shred? I know many of the big chains use diced, but it seems most of the indies use shred (just my unscientific observation).
I guess whatever way you cut it (no pun intended), cheese is expensive as hell right now and we all need a relief!
BTW, when an attachment says it fits #12 hubs, are all #12 hubs the same no matter what mixer manufacturer I use? i’e. Univex, Hobart, etc.
Yes #12 hubs are an industry standard. I took one that was used on a Hobart and am using it on Doyon.
While you will save $ on your initial cheese purchase, without a doubt shredding you own cheese makes it very difficult to portion control.
Diced cheese makes portion control much easier, and gives much more even coverage over the pizza with less cheese. I cut 1 oz of cheese off my 14" pizza by switching to diced…so you do the math on your usage.
But I feel very strongly diced cheese is far superior to self shredded.
FYI, Grande diced comes prebagged in bag filled with a gas that keeps the cheese fresh longer than self shredded. sorry for not knowing the name of the gas.
block cheese price will always be cheaper on your invoice - you then have to factor in the following plus several more factors
FICA
Taxes
Wages
WASTE
inconsistent shreds =if you shred or dice a lot at one time you are processing this cheese most times at room temp cheese will get warm and stick together = shred sizes are never the same on a store operated shredded = diced cheese from your supplier is a little more messy on the make table - if you have grates under your make table or a solid steel or cutting board that you can collect the excess cheese from =then you are ok
remember - if your pizzeria is slammed and you are running low on cheese - driver just gets to your pizzeria with your delivery and now you have to shred cheese before you use it - then store it in bins/buckets until use or for use = that is valuable time - my suggestion - buy diced cheese to your liking - take a 12 oz plastic pop cup- mark the cup for the certain weight of cheese needed per pizza- take the pizza order on the phone - walk to the make table- make the pizza using a cup of XX amount of cheese= dump the cup onto the sauce and spread the pizza cheese around the surface of the pizza=
shred cheese users will find themselves moving the shreds of cheese around the surface of the pizza to get maximum coverage of the cheese on the pizza