We get asked all the time - what is the benefit of precooked pasta in a Quick Service Restaurant environment? In order to properly answer this question we need to look at a bunch of factors.
First, cost of the dry product vs the cooked. Yes, the cooked is more expensive upon first glance. But there is more under the surface of this debate.
Other major factors include:
1. Waste - When boiling pasta in-store or in a restaurant environment typically more pasta is boiled than is used as a daily average.
2. Utilities and equipment. Without question, the equipment need to boil, strain and cook pasta costs more - as well as the upkeep. But the utilities (gas or electric) to boil and strain use more $$ as well.
3. Workers comp claims. When dealing with boiling vats of water and heat there will always be more Worker's Comp claims. In some of our favorite QSRs we have reports of claims going down by hundred's of thousands each year.
4. Time. It takes employees on average 20 - 25 minutes to boil, strain and cool 10-20lbs of pasta. When looking at scalable models this is a dramatic time savings in wages.
5. Consistency. While it is tough to put a direct costs on this employees in a QSR environment can often let the pasta boil over and extra 1-2 minutes greatly changing the consistency of certain products. Ultimately this can lead to $$ as customers become dissatisfied with not getting an identical product each time.
Every QSR has different obstacles to overcome and cooking pasta should not be one of them. Contact a Nate's Fine Foods Sales rep to learn how we have saved customers cost, time and headache for the last five years!