• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • NEWS
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Science
  • World
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech

Shifting Shapes: Demand rises for unusual cuts of produce

June 1, 2022

The Moscow region ranks first in the Central Federal District in terms of production of open ground vegetables

June 29, 2022

AMA news in Finnish

June 29, 2022

Mher Grigoryan and a delegation from the Russian Federation discussed programs on winemaking and organic agriculture

June 29, 2022

A vegetable complex for 7 billion rubles will be built in Kuzbass by 2026

June 29, 2022

Slicing, packaging, and sorting machines for the vegetable industry available

June 29, 2022

Heat wave has led to a slight supply shortage for cauliflower and broccoli

June 29, 2022

Summer lychees are well received by restaurateurs and specialty retailers

June 29, 2022

I want to eventually supply retailers with white currants at Christmas

June 29, 2022

Swedish Midsummer festival leads to record strawberry sales

June 29, 2022

Setting up facilities for strawberry substrate cultivations in southern Italy

June 29, 2022

Our sector must be ready for the impending plastic to cardboard switch

June 29, 2022

In the village of Bagaevskaya, Rostov Region, the 10th anniversary holiday “Cucumber Day” was celebrated

June 29, 2022
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Thursday, June 30, 2022
  • Login
Vegetables News
  • Home
  • AGROTECHNOLOGY
  • NEWS
  • Vegetables
  • Market
No Result
View All Result
Vegetables News
Home Vegetables

Shifting Shapes: Demand rises for unusual cuts of produce

by Tatyana Ivanovich
June 1, 2022
in Vegetables
0
491
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

It’s amazing what you can create with fresh fruit and vegetables and a knife these days.

That’s what fresh-cut processors find as they respond to demand from chefs and caterers to produce different cuts and shapes that create new visual interest for dressing up plates and buffets.

ADVERTISEMENT

For example, Simply Fresh Fruit in Vernon, California, recently rolled out a new line of fresh-cut fruit designed for professional chefs and caterers. Its new Chef’s Choice selections include citrus wheels, pineapple half-rings, mango spears, kiwi wedges, and melon balls.

“The five new fruit cuts are unique in shape and style to go beyond the usual square cuts normally associated with fresh cut fruit,” a company press release said.

Equipment manufacturers like Urschel continue to develop new technology for creating different types of cuts. Its Model CC Slicer does everything from varying sizes of crinkle cuts to oval shreds.

But out-of-the-ordinary shapes – say, a mushroom-shaped potato – are mostly done by hand. Dan Vache, vice president of supply chain management for the United Fresh Produce Association, said major manufacturers don’t typically pursue developing equipment that would do it instead because volume doesn’t typically warrant it.

“Why they don’t do it is because … people need to do high volume in order to afford that kind of investment on cutting equipment,” he said.

But fresh-cut operations that do both automated and hand processing are set up to respond to such requests.

“We do a lot of special orders,” said Vaughn Ford, one of the owners of Ford’s Produce in Raleigh, North Carolina, which produces fresh-cut products under its Mr. Fresh! label. “We have a rule that anybody can call before noon and get it the next day, no matter what it is.

“We don’t do a lot of big runs – most are around five to 10 boxes at a time.”

Demand for unusual shapes tend to come in with chefs and caterers who want to do something different for a special event.

“Things run in trends and after a while, a lot of menus start to look alike,” Ford said. “Chefs want to have that next big thing.

“A potato is a potato no matter how you cook it … but you can make it look impressive or more inviting on the plate.”

But chefs may not have the staff to make that happen themselves.

“They don’t have the time,” Ford said. “It takes a lot of time and if they’ve got to put out a convention center meal with 1,000 plates, everybody sitting down at one time, they don’t have the labor.

“We can be an extension of their labor force.”

Ford’s last processing room manager was a professional chef who introduced several new products now standard on the Mr. Fresh! roster designed to help chefs create that “wow” factor.  One of them was tourneed potatoes – a French, seven-sided elliptical cut.

“It’s very labor intensive, and expensive,” Ford said. “Right now, two pounds would be about $28.”

But chefs are willing to pay to get something different. Mr. Fresh! also offers mushroom-shaped potatoes.

“We may do potatoes eight different ways in a day,” Ford said.

With machines that peel melons, staff can then do different cuts in those as well.

“Sometimes instead of the typical bite-size chunks, people want half moons or wedges,” he said.

Ford can accommodate the quick turnaround on orders for unusual items because employees are cross trained. When he needs to, he can pull people who know how to do the cutting out of Fords’ distribution center to help meet demand.

“We’ll do just about anything,” he said. “If somebody’s willing to pay for it, we’ll do it.”

And sometimes they aren’t.

“A lot of times, people have a good idea, but once you price it out, sometimes they decide to go a different way,” Ford said.

Vance Jackson, vice president and owner at Vegetable Fresh in Chicago, operates similarly.

“We’ve gotten into all sorts of different ways to cut different items,” he said.

Some of those lately include cutting peppers, potatoes or carrots into triangles – or at Valentine’s Day, red peppers into hearts. In the latter instance, his workers used cookie cutters to cut them out.

“We’re doing a lot of carved vegetables  – radish rosettes, things like that,” he said. “They’re basically side dishes for upscale restaurants, or to put on the plate as a garnish.”

The company has also been doing more with jicama, including half-moon shapes – popular in orders for school snacks, he says.

Here, too, most are done by hand.

“Anytime you do any kind of special shape you have to do it by hand or with some mechanism that is made especially for that,” Jackson says.

Tornado Fries

Lou Golato, owner of New Jersey-based Tornado Fries, has created a business around one particular unusual shape. In 2002, he started a company based on a drill with a blade, modifying an existing curly fry cutter to spiral cut a potato into thin slices while leaving the core intact. A long stick goes through the middle and the potato gets fanned out so the individual layers are separated before it goes into hot oil to be served hot in 90 seconds. Customers select from a range of seasonings.

“The potato actually fuses to the stick so you can pull off what you want without it falling apart,” Golato said.

The company started out doing fairs and trade shows, and has been operating seasonal shops in tourist areas. The next frontier is mall stores, with one recently opened in Valencia, California. Besides California, Tornado Fries is doing some business in Arizona in the winter, and in New Jersey, New York and Utah.

The company was recently featured on The Food Network’s “Unwrapped” series, which takes viewers behind the scenes to see how things are made. They’ve also been covered by National Public Radio.

“I would say the novelty of it is it kind of attracts attention,” Golato said. “and then once they taste them, they’re hooked.”

Tags: Shifting
Share196Tweet123Share49

Tatyana Ivanovich

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

Produce grower-shipper Tanimura & Antle surpasses 4,000 employee vaccinations

March 28, 2021

Situation with potato seeds in Russia is catastrophic

February 19, 2022

Tomato Days Turkey

February 1, 2022

Produce grower-shipper Tanimura & Antle surpasses 4,000 employee vaccinations

16602

Trabotyx receives 460.000 euro in funding to bring its farming robot to market

8012

Hazera. Growing solutions for you

4846

The Moscow region ranks first in the Central Federal District in terms of production of open ground vegetables

June 29, 2022

AMA news in Finnish

June 29, 2022

Mher Grigoryan and a delegation from the Russian Federation discussed programs on winemaking and organic agriculture

June 29, 2022

Copyright © 20122 Vegetables News

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • AGROTECHNOLOGY
  • NEWS
  • Vegetables
  • Market
  • Login

Copyright © 20122 Vegetables News

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In