Pre sliced meat

[boatnut]

Looking at switching to pre sliced. Anybody have experience with this switch? What happened to food costs etc?
Been tracking our wastage. Runs approx 5% ( the ends etc discarded ) . This does NOT include when the employees set the slicer at #2 vs #1.5 increasing the cost by 33% nor the time they push harder on the meat and get the same result. Why do they never make them thinner lol ??
If I factor in the above, forgetting the labour savings, seems to be a wash to me?
What am I missing apart from being there every time we slice meat ( Non option ).

 

[system]

From a customer standpoint… QUALITY! There is no way that a packaged presliced meat…I am guessing this is sandwich meats… can compare to fresh sliced. They dry out. I am sure there are some OK products out there…but unless your use is so high that you can open and use a pkg in 15 mins or less…then I would stay away. I even dislike places that slice and then let it sit out for hours…it gets hard and disgusting. I would worry about losing customers!

 

[boatnut]

Not sandwich meats. These are exactly the same ham, pep, salami as I buy now in the tube. Only diff is it arrives pre sliced. Volume is high enough that drying out etc is a non issue.

 

[system]

Opps…sorry Nut I thought you were not talking pizza toppings. That said, and I am only guessing that you would be ok so long as used and not held over day to day. I am sure their are many others that can chime in on this one. Since these are all sliced and vacuumed sealed so quickly that I would be surprised…not too mention items like pep, ham, and other hard sausages like salami hold up ten times better and have longer shelf life than other “cold cuts” or sandwich types…ie: turkey, beef,…etc. Lets see what others say!

 

[Fire_Side_Pizza]

It all depends on cost. If you weigh out the difference in man hours it takes to slice all your meat and put that against the costs of the sliced meat, do you come out ahead? Then anyone who would have done the prep could be busy doing something else that may need more help in like flyering or cleaning.

 

[Daddio]

The trouble i had with the presliced meat was freshness. I on more than one occasion had green ham delivered. That was when I decided that the cost of buying fresh locally produced meat was a better deal even though I pay more.

 

[system]

Daddio…was it not Dr. Seuss appreciation month? What color were your eggs?

 

[jollypizza]

We been using presliced meats and cheese for 7 or 8 years now. The price is a little higher, but there is NO waste. We use the same ham, cap, salami,roast beef, and provolone we would have bought unsliced. You get the added benefit of not having a slicer, which is a huge cause of worker’s comp claims.

 

[boatnut]

Jollypizza, I am about to switch as well. Same same as in I will be using the exact same products as before but arriving pre sliced. The slice count per Kg is approx 15% higher than what we slice in house on average. Really doubt that anybody will notice that. Add the minimum 5% wastage, forget the employee setting the slice machine “too fat” and forget labour to slice and it is still a wash. Reality is those two “forget” items represent very significant savings.
The only problem I see is I have to maintain a certain level of staff to answer the phones when busy. It will be a challenge to keep them busy with no meat to slice. I also just purchased a " Dynocuber" manual cubing machine. Cut my labour by a minimum of 40% dicing onions, G Peppers, tomatoes etc. Put the two changes together and I really will have to revisit our scheduling.
Not a bad problem I guess… Thinking is that I can’t really reduce staffing but I have greatly increased our “capacity” before having to increase staff level. While waiting for this increase, can have the staff clean clean clean and all focus on quality control.
I see this change as a very large positive.

Daddio…
Not sure of your location but my deliveries will come out of the same Sysco warehouse as a number of major chains in our area , Boston Pizza for example, they use the same product so feel fairly confident there is enough of a turn to offset aged product issues.