STOP ME BEFORE I SHOP AGAIN

[snousle]

I'm thinking of adding a blast chiller/freezer to the commercial kitchen. There appears to be a robust demand for top quality frozen convenience foods, but it is nearly impossible to produce them in quantity armed with only a chest freezer. Chest freezers are very efficient, but very slow - put a hot pan of food in there and the whole contents of the freezer will melt. Even with pre-chilling in the fridge they are very limited in how fast they can freeze things, and in how much they can handle.

For about $10K I can get this undercounter blast chiller:



There is a perfect spot for it, and I can put a countertop oven on top of that. In my dreams, I would get a Rational combi-oven, which gives precise control over both temperature and humidity:



These are REALLY expensive. But compared to what I've sunk in so far... for just a bit more the kitchen becomes a fairly serious production facility with much, much greater throughput.

Of course it makes no sense to do this while I'm already having procrastination issues on much more lucrative work. The lure of Big Toys is way too seductive. I'm not 100% sure how committed I am to this idea, and the actual practice of food production has been kind of stressful. Then again, it's been kind of stressful in part because of insufficient capacity at key steps.

There is also the risk of a big economic disruption, and the concern that intangible assets (money, stocks) are kind of uncertain right now, so since we have the cash on hand maybe this is actually not a bad thing to park it in. I can imagine some kinds of food service that would be very popular in a depression economy. Beans, anyone?

I think if I did this I would want to hire other people to do the work and focus on recipe development / management myself. Which would be kind of interesting. There are several underemployed people on the ranch who would love a job they don't have to commute for.

Hmmm.....

Comments

[wolfstoy.livejournal.com]

Have you looked at the idea of picking up one used or second hand? It seems to me that the right company going out of business could be an oportunity to pick up such equipment without as much of a capital investment. I'd look to see if there are any places that track auctions for restraunts going out of business. Back when I was buying tools, I ended up going to a few auctions myself. In fact, you may have seen one of the signs that I picked up at one place going out of business.

Edit: FYI on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beverage-Air-BF051AF-Work-Top-Blast-Chiller-Free-/330616163228?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cfa424b9c

Under $8200... just sayin'

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I saw that earlier, and it's a pretty good deal for a new unit, but if my local restaurant supply place can get it in about that price range I'm not going to go elsewhere unless it's a good bit cheaper. I have a guy looking into that (and other alternatives) right now, so we shall see.

The Rational ovens sell used for less than half price, but for a high tech, temperamental precision machine (quite unlike a regular oven), I'm kind of nervous about getting a pig in a poke. That in fact might be exactly why the used machines are so cheap. Just because they appear to "work" doesn't mean that they are in spec.

Food mistakes can get real expensive. If one of these things goes down during production you can easily lose $1000 worth of product. So I'm kind of leery about the used market in general.

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Nice frozen dinners are a luxury nowadays. But it seems you'd have to sell thousands of them to actually break even. I suppose if your computer code projects can support suchh an exotic hobby, that might make it worthwhile as a creative outlet.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I haven't done the detailed economics of this but I think it has a good chance. I'm looking at a 5x markup over ingredient costs with quite a lot of efficiency. Mexicans may be involved.

Besides, the option is not between "food production" and "not food production". It's between "busy equipment" and "idle equipment". The sunk costs are not in the equation. Also, it's not just a retail market I'm looking at, it's also in support of a larger "experience" that may some day fetch really a lot of money. Think of rockstars who want to go mushroom collecting. A lot of this is speculative but it's not like I'm competing with Birdseye. This could be a very special niche.

Also, "thousands" would be on the low end of what I'm looking at. I think 100 meals/day is not an unreasonable target for this system.

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would pay more than $5 for a frozen dinner. I have been known to be cheap, though, What sort of frozen dinner do you think you could produce for your demographic at what price?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Seared rib steak with Palouse lentils and red wine reduction over farro risotto. Eighteen dollars a serving! Not just cuisine, also a form of blackmail. ;-)

I mentioned to my coach today that "we live in a very frugal county". She snapped "See, you're already making excuses for yourself!"

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

blast chillers are great, especially for pastry work (all those molds!), but a Combi is more versatile. you can use it to sterilize jars for canning, to gently reheat delicate foods like poached eggs, the temperature control is precise enough for sous vide cooking...

before his investors decided to shut him down and redirect funds to their floundering and irrelevant joke of a washed-up restaurant other holdings, my mentor-friend-person-thing Will had both the blast chiller and Combi in his kitchen at Tell Tale Preserve Co. SO much fun working in his space.