Gluten Free Dusted Calamari Delivers Food Service Value

For restaurants and other food service establishments, especially during these challenging times, a welcome “invention” has to be pre-portioned servings. These pre-weighed and packaged servings that ensure that each dish is consistent, create a distinct win-win: Diners get the uniform portions from plate to plate and for restaurant owners, a consistent serving size stops the overuse of ingredients, which can be expensive, especially for popular dishes.

Consistent serving size is not the only benefit to pre-portioned ingredients, especially when it comes to seafood. Let’s use a favorite, gluten-free lightly dusted calamari that comes pre-portioned and flash frozen, to look at other positive attributes.

 Fresh. 
Any restaurant owner who serves seafood knows it has a limited shelf life, whether fresh or thawed. Quality once-frozen, pre-portioned servings ensure only the required amount of calamari is removed from the freezer, keeping the rest fresh until needed. Once-frozen is raw, and never pre-blanched or pre-cooked.

Drives Margin.
Gluten Free Dusted Calamari portions drive aggressive bottom-line profits, at a national average menu feature price of $14.00, with a general portion cost to the plate of $3.50 +/-, receive a consistent profitability of 75% at a 25% food cost. 24 servings to a 12/Lb case delivers an impressive case profit of over $250.00.

Labor savings. 
Dusted calamari is hand-layered in easy-access boxes. It features a freezer-to-plate time of only 90 seconds with no prep required. This adds up to significantly reduced labor costs. Bonus: Chefs can concentrate on creating innovative dishes, knowing the calamari will be ready when they are.

Increased income. 
Dishes that can be prepared quickly translate into faster table turnover, which means more revenue for the restaurant and its servers.

Versatile.
Gluten-free dusted calamari fits nearly every menu category, from appetizers, salads and entrees. Coming pre-portioned makes it faster and easier to create innovative signature dishes.

Training. 
Especially in today’s labor market where good kitchen help is hard to find, training should be made as easy as possible. Pre-portioned dusted calamari that can be used for a wide variety of dishes makes training easy and frees up time for new hires to learn other trade necessities.

Perfect mix. 
In addition to consistent portions, pre-portioned dusted calamari includes the ideal—and consistent—blend of tentacles and rings, eliminating disproportionate amounts of one or the other.  

Dieter’s delight.
Seafood, such as lightly dusted calamari, is healthier than many other options for customers watching what they eat. Meanwhile, pre-portioned 8-ounce servings assist dieters in planning a consistent and appropriate daily food intake.

Easy menu addition.
Many states mandate that menus include the exact calories for all food served. Pre-portioned servings make this easy and accurate to meet the guidelines. 

Replicates scratch. 
Perhaps one of the most significant benefits to pre-portioned gluten-free dusted calamari is its quality. It delivers all the above benefits, yet the taste and texture will have patrons wondering how fresh can be fixed so fast—even in the middle of winter.

If you are in food service and haven’t added pre-portioned gluten-free lightly dusted calamari to your menu, it’s time you did. The benefits are many and critical as you get back to the business of attracting more customers and targeting higher margins.