I was in this bakery the other day and saw the counter person throwing away stuff.
old danish and brioche' and other breakfast items that they make FRESH EVERYDAY.
besides thinking she should be lucky she does not work for me cause she'd still be tied up in the store room---I got thinking about just how much Pastry you guys(CHEFS)make everyday.
and more important what you do with it after, lets say, two days.
now some things you can keep and still serve after 4 days, a little frenshing up may be reqiured, but there are many things that just go to hell and look bad.
So...1. what do you guys produce
2. how much everyday/week.
3. what do you do with it after lets say,3days.
4. how much do you recycle...
5. and do you know how to recycle to make new products.
I only ask cause this is a very important aspect of SAVING MONEY in an area of the kitchen that, is known for not making to much money, if any at all. The Pastry and Bakery Shop.
There are so many things that can be made that would make your money back(time and ingreidents) from this kind of product.
let me know, please.
thanks.

By Chefhdan (Chefhdan) on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 - 07:08 am: Edit

Spike- I've always looked at the pastry / baking goods as check average bonus stuff and not an area of loss within my operations. I must confess though that the products I'm using are either outsourced or of the freezer to fire variety. Using these methods plus a close association with the POS system tied into some intense production control methods I find that very little needs to be wasted, and if you don't need to spend the $$$ to start with then there is that much less to worry about saving in hindsight.
Not to say that it doesn't happen... "F-ing" breads, ( Can I still say "F-ing" or will it be edited???), No matter what I threaten my outlet restaurant managers with I always seem to get more rolls & bread basket stuff back at the end of the day than started it. SOOOO... its bread crumbs, stuffing, croutons & the usual. I've had pretty good success with savory bread puddings as a side dish or warm salad entree. When there are danish, donut, muffin, or breakfast quickbread leftovers I'll run a bread pudding on the sweet side.

By Peachcreek (Peachcreek) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 01:52 pm: Edit

We make all of our breads daily, and even though we didn't start out thinking that everything would be fresh everyday, it has kind of morphed into that. We are able to reuse our baguettes and focaccia in secondary products and have to toss the other two varieties if they don't sell. So we watch those carefully and still end up tossing several leftover loaves per day. On our desserts, we keep it to a minimum selection and just do 4 types of cookies and then our brownies since we can get 1-2 days and they are still really good. We do end up with extra cookies which the waitstaff seem to think are excellent even if I don't want to sell them. All of our tossed bread also ends up at some employees' house, at least it is getting eaten.
To me our baking and desserts aren't there just to help our ticket average, but also to be able to produce a higher quality product than I can affordably buy from outsourcing.
Doing my part to keep a pastry guy off the streets......
BTW- we make 60-80 loaves per day, 5-6 dozen cookies per day,5 dozen brownies per week, small time, I know, but hey its mine....

By Chefrev (Chefrev) on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Pretty much what I've done or seen done in the past is a lot of what chefhdan mentioned and some of peachcreek's (my kids got used to having "Daddy bread" I'd bring home).

Brioche or italian bread (really any bread)always makes better french toast when it IS stale or day old. Other than that I like to make panzanella salads with old bread tossed with the greens and dressing.

Unfortunately the bakery where I wrok now closed so we outsource desserts, rolls, etc. I still do our own brioche and muffins, but that's about it for baked goods. No idea what to do with old muffins, though.

By Vidi (Vidi) on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 11:44 am: Edit

When I took over my bakery ( Jan 1 2004 ) with no experience the VERY FIRST thing I noticed was we were throwing away three to four plastic trash bags ( kitchen size not yard thank god ) away at the end of the day.

I immediately cut back on production of all donuts and gradually increased them ( day by day ) until I was only throwing away about half a bag a day and not running out of anything too early in the day.

I also started day olding the donuts and selling the day olds for 2 bucks a dozen in my day old section. This works only for non glazed items ( with the exception of the sour creamdonuts ) as the glaze is just a mess in a plastic bag.

As far as breads go, I allow them to sit on my shelves two days. On the third day, they are moved to the top shelf of my day old section. On the fourth day, moved to the second shelf and on the fifth day thrown away ( though some get made into rusks which sell fairly well ).

I sell all bread off the day old at 1 dollar, except for my pumpernickel/white swirl which I sell only in the half loaf ( People wont touch a whole loaf of it here for some reason ) so the half loaf is sold for 50 cents.

I make approx 30 loaves of white bread a day, 30 loaves of whole wheat, cracked wheat and rye every two days, 8 - 10 dozen cookies per day, approximately 400 donuts, danish a day, 2 coffe cakes daily, and assorted other treats ( Like muffin cakes, muffins, ) are made as needed.

Also we do a very brisk cake business, my finace is decorating 7 birthday cakes that were ordered for today.