I have heard it said many times before, “Fresh is best”. But, what does that saying REALLY mean?
Should you be making product “A” every day? DO you keep it in the display cabinet until it’s sold or starts looking a bit second hand? Wouldn’t it be nice to have fresh product on display EVERY day?
Well the truth is you can, and with no negative impact on quality. This brings us to the topic header. You can freeze most of the product you make successfully, and without the need for expensive speciality freezers.
The problem most people face when trying to freeze a product is freezer breakdown. This happens in the freezer if the product is kept for a week or more and also can occur upon thawing.
So how to successfully freeze then? Well, like it or not, you will have to modify your product to make it more “robust” for the freezer. This will usually involve some trial and error.
Some examples;
Pastries (Pies, Pasties, etc). After a short period of time you may notice the pastry de-laminating. There are ways around this that don’t involve you losing some of that precious “puff”.
Eclairs. Yes, you can make, fill and decorate an Eclair and freeze them. The biggest issue you will face is the icing on top breaking down. Again, there are ways around this too but you will have to be prepared to experiment with adding other ingredients to your icing. In my case, it definitely improved the taste and appearance of the fondant on top.
Modifying your product to make it more suitable for freezing DOES NOT mean you have to sacrifice quality. A thawed frozen pie for example can look, taste and smell every bit as good as a pie that was “fresh”. By the time is has been reheated and placed for sale in your pie warmer there will be no detectable difference between each product.
After all this, you may still ask WHY bother? Well its simple really. Here we go………..
- With bigger batch sizes comes more product consistency.
- With bigger batch sizes you will be able to have a greater variety of product on display.
- With bigger batch sizes profit margins increase.
- With bigger batch sizes comes more productivity.
- With more productivity comes reduced wages.
- When you have better productivity, you can actually REDUCE your levels of production staff.
- With reduced wages comes more profit.
There are other advantages of “Frozen” vs “Fresh made” too. When your production is aimed at a freezer you can build your stock in readiness for upcoming busy periods to ensure you don’t “run out” of anything.
Early morning start times can be reduced to something resembling “normal”. This in turn can eliminate early morning wage penalty rates, again saving even more in wages.
Overtime can be eliminated. As you are working to a freezer instead of daily shop needs production can be scheduled around your rostered working hours.
Recent Comments