I am curious to hear from other operators which method you prefer, to buy and slice your own meats, or to purchased pre sliced meats.
In my limited experience so far, only about a year and 10 to 15 pounds of meat per week, I find myself stuck on calling one better than the other. By slicing our own meats there is the “Fresh” factor that you can market, which is a plus, and there is also the significant cost difference of $1 to $2 per pound, and the slicing in and of itself isn’t currently super labor intensive.
However, there is something to be said for the consistency of the pre sliced meats. Uniform slices, and consistent food cost. I notice that when I slice it, vs employee A, vs employee B, the weight of each slice is different. There is also sometimes as much as half a pound to a full pound of waste at the end of each whole ham, turkey, salami, etc. I never have really stopped to factor this in to the cost, as I don’t know if it’s just operator error, the quality of my slicer, or just the name of the game.
Quality wise there is definitely a difference in taste between the two products, but I wouldn’t necessarily call one better than the other. I have people that taste tested between the two, and it was a fairly even split.
Which method do you use in your restaurants, and what kind of volume do you do?
I lamented this all day long before I opened.
I only do a few paninis and only did them because I thought just pizza would be too limiting.
They aren’t my focus and usually are a PITA.
That said… the vibe I got from people who knew more than I was pre-sliced (and there is a thread here about pre-sliced and slicers) were expensive and you did not have many options.
Slicers scared me- they still do but I found a very nice Berkel on CL and manned up- I use it. Carefully.
It was very lightly used and was $1600 new- got it for $400 so that made slicing my own doable.
I saw pre-sliced stuff at Sams and thought that was an option.
I go down pretty low- VERY little waste on the ends. And what there is I slice manually and that goes on the panini, too.
My volume is next to nothing so take that into account.
I pre-slice and pre-portion and then freeze. (some of it)
Also… I use very good quality meats- which I’m not sure is really needed in a panini but…
And the costs/lb are good; 3.31/ham and turkey and 5.13/lb roast beef. When I was at Sams, I priced the pre-sliced roast beef; Like $8/lb!
We buy and slice our meats, to combat the issue you have with different slice weights between employees is to just thinly slice the meat, then portion by weight in saran wrap. Thats how I do my turkey and roast beef.
As far as the ends of the loaf, I give them to customers with dogs as dog treats, roast beef always has shrinkage.
Ps- Always buy presliced pastrami, slicing pastrami yourself was a pain and yields alot less
Forgot about pastrami… yeah… that comes pre-done in a big square “brick”. They must suck it in with a turbine or shove it in w a 10-Ton press. Trying to get it out (piece by piece) is an exercise in futility! Gotta take that brick out and then repack it.
“dog treats” What a great idea!