Chef wants to swap a chunk of morning prep for value‑added from US Foods - pre-diced onions, julienne peppers, and pre-portioned chicken - which cuts my board work from 3 hours to about 90 minutes, but the onions weep, peppers bruise by dinner, and the cost per case stings. If you’ve made the switch, what are you still cutting in-house and what do you let the vendor handle to keep speed without wrecking texture and shelf life?
Vendor handles IQF diced onions for anything cooked and 5 oz trimmed chicken breasts, but we still cut onions and peppers in-house for raw or fast sauté where texture matters. The pre-portioned chicken got way better once we rack it on sheet pans and air-dry in the walk-in 30-45 minutes before service. If you stick with vendor peppers, keep them in a perforated hotel pan lined with a dry towel and swap smaller batches more often - otherwise they mush out by dinner.
I stuck with US Foods diced onions, but I dump each bag into a perforated pan nested over a solid and let it drain in the walk‑in for about 25 minutes; it knocks out most of the weep so they sauté clean, and I still keep morning prep around 90 minutes.