Salad Bar Guide 
SYSCO Food Services of Portland, Inc.

Table of Contents Point and click to navigate INTRODUCTION GENERAL SALAD BAR INFORMATION SET UP SUGGESTIONS EQUIPMENT OPTIONS UTENSILS AND ACCESSORIES MAINTENANCE SANITATION AND SAFETY MERCHANDISING SUGGESTIONS SEASONAL ITEMS GUIDE SPECIAL EVENT SALAD BARS PROFITABILITY

At SYSCO we value our customers and we listen to your comments and requests. Our staff of professionals have worked together with you in mind to bring you this informative and helpful Salad Bar Guide.

Relax... and let us help you develop a salad bar that will be enjoyable for your customers and profitable to your business. We stand ready to offer you the best in the foodservice industry with our quality products and a professional staff second to none in quality assurance.

We hope you enjoy this guide!

 GENERAL SALAD BAR INFORMATION

POPULARITY OF THE SALAD BAR

• The salad bar is a major food service trend that continues to increase in popularity.
• Is a perfect match for customers desiring fresh, convenient and healthy choices.
• A primary marketing tool which presents well to families, as well as singles, and couples.
• Attracts new customers, builds incremental sales and can generate new profits.

CUSTOMER ATTITUDES

• A quick choice for dining - no waiting!
• A "fun" association with salad bars
• Allows freedom of ingredient selection, not easily assembled at home
• Perceived as a "good food" value!
• Desirable to the nutrition, vegetarian and calorie-conscious customer.

LABOR EFFICIENT

• Customers serve themselves.
• Preparation time is less labor intensive than entree salads.
• Pre-cut value-added lettuce and fresh vegetables offer additional savings.

COST EFFECTIVE

• Reduces waste, customers take only what they want.
• Can experiment with the ingredients to achieve desired blend of popular low and high cost items.
• Successful operators know they can charge a fair price to achieve desired profits with a high-quality salad bar.

EQUIPMENT OPTIONS

There are three general types of salad bars available:

• Ice Chilled
• Frost Top
• Air Chilled

Each have their own unique characteristics and the one you use will depend on which best suits your needs.

ICE CHILLED:

While still widely used, the ice chilled salad bar is the least cost effective. It requires more maintenance than refrigerated units and the cost of ice replacement as well as the reliance on the ice machine may be too great to be practical or profitable.

The most positive aspects are the somewhat lesser initial outlay and the "fresh" appeal which the iced display portrays. The customer often associates the ice with freshness and thus feels comfortable with the quality of the products in the salad bar.

FROST TOP:

The frost top salad bar has refrigerated piping running underneath the top surface; frost forms when warm air makes contact with the cold surface of the salad bar. This provides for a more maintenance free and cost effective set up than the ice chilled bar. However, since the surface of the salad bar actually freezes, any spilled items can freeze and stick to the surface.

AIR CHILLED:

The air chilled salad bars keep items cold by blowing air over a refrigerated coil in a compressor located in the bottom of the unit. This is the most cost effective type of salad bar to operate. They are typically less expensive than the frost top and use less energy to run. Product does not stick to the surface and thus it is easier to keep clean. Many of these units come in detachable sections which can be removed and refined to create different salad bar configurations.

While considering different types of salad bars, be sure to keep in mind practicality. Do you need to remove the salad bar from the floor each night? if so, a salad bar on wheels is suggested. How much room do you have? Can other space be procured to expand your salad bar? You may want to consider an expandable bar for the future. Of course you will also need to consider how the salad bar will fit into your decor, what sanitation needs you have and how a particular model of salad bar could facilitate them.

Your SYSCO Non-foods Specialist is available for additional ideas and suggestions.

UTENSILS & ACCESSORIES

SERVING CONTAINERS

There are many types of salad bowls or plates for your customer's use. Plastic, wood, metal, glass or ceramic, they're all available in many different styles and sizes. Smaller plates are good for side dish salads, while an 8-10 inch size is more appropriate for larger entree salads with a bread or roll accompaniment.

Ceramic dinner or luncheon plates with popular china patterns or the oval style platters provide a dramatic setting. Plastic bowls are available in clear, colors, or simulated wood, and genuine wooden bowls are laminated to meet health regulations. There is also a wide variety of pewter-like bowls and plates from manufacturers who offer many styles to fit a specific decor. Glass plates and bowls always add appeal to a fresh salad and will coordinate well with other tableware. Pewter-like and glass bowls offer the advantage of maintaining the cool temperature and crispness of your salad ingredients.

Ingredient containers are also available in many materials, sizes and shapes. You can serve your more popular items in larger containers, and put less-used ingredients and garnishes in smaller containers.

While not necessary, use pre-chilled salad plates or bowls at the start of the line. This is a memorable plus for your customers and adds a special touch. Chilled forks take this special touch even one step further.

SERVING UTENSILS

Serving utensils should match their use. For items such as lettuce and bean sprouts, use tongs: beans and beets can be drained with slotted spoons: small dry ingredients such as croutons and bacon bits require a spoon: pickles and fruit slices are best served with a fork. As an economical measure, provide small serving utensils for more expensive ingredients. Keep extra utensils close at hand in case they are dropped.

Your SYSCO Marketing Associate or Non-foods Specialist can assist you with the many varieties and options available.

MAINTENANCE

Labor requirements to run a salad bar will vary depending on the degree you promote the concept. One factor that will aid in the success of your salad bar, however, is putting one working staff member in charge of the salad bar each day. He or she should check the bar frequently to keep it clean, re-supply ingredients, and maintain a usage log of ingredients to help monitor food costs. Have a back up supply of containers for easy replacement and be sure to store usable leftovers away quickly.

Remember, sanitation is not only important in regards to health considerations, but is critical in creating a salad bar which is user friendly and desirable. A poorly mantained salad bar can cause customers to avoid it and worse yet, to avoid your restaurant all together.

SANITATION & SAFETY

• Keep cold foods cold by not overfilling containers past the brim, especially mayonnaise based salads.
• Replenish often with fresh ingredients, rotate stored food properly (for fresh presentation) to prevent contamination.
• Don't let prepared meats, cheeses, or prepared salads sit out at room temperature.
• Use concentrated lemon juice and water as a preservative on fruit to help maintain freshness.
• Keep dry condiments away from moist foods.
• Wash fresh produce and fruit, drain or spin dry.
• Be sure that you have a sneeze guard which meets health standards and that it is kept clean.

MERCHANDISING SUGGESTIONS

No less than 45% of restaurant customers say, a salad bar is the one feature they want most, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Their responses reveal that salad bars offer good value for the dollar, and an opportunity to control their own portion size, as well as having a chance to fix something their own way.

Today's customers are very responsive to the trend for freshness, variety, wholesomeness, good nutrition and the need for self-expression. The salad bar satisfies all these needs. It is therefore advantageous for you to take the opportunity to attract customers to your restaurant with a top quality salad bar presentation. There are many ways to display and market your salad bar program. Here are some ideas you might consider:

GARNISHES:

Several fresh produce items can be used to add color and flair to your salad bar. While kale is the most popular because of its deep green color and durability, you may also want to consider leaf lettuce, parsley, or even Nappa cabbage. Some operators present arrangements made into flowers with potatoes, carrots, and celery. What ever you can do to attract people to your salad bar will help to make your operation more profitable.

INGREDIENTS:

Ingredients are limited only by your imagination and the tastes of your customers. However, consider items which may help the customer identify with your salad bar. Vary ingredients to keep interest. Be creative, consider color, flavor, and texture. Don't lose sight of seasonality of items. What is cost effective in the summer may not be in the winter.

The dressing selection should include at least one clear and one creamy. The clear dressing can be oil & vinegar or oil & lemon with endless variations. The creamy dressing can have a base of mayonnaise, sour cream, cottage cheese, yogurt or buttermilk. Use prepared dressing mixes or make your own. Consider a special low-calorie dressing for your diet-conscious customers.

Your SYSCO Marketing Associate can help with ideas and suggestions to keep your salad bar unique and exciting. Specialists in every department of food service, produce, protein, non-foods, dry grocery and beverage, are available to assist you in making your salad bar as profitable and creative as possible.

SYSCO's extensive line of garden fresh value added produce and SYSCO natural products can cut labor cost and provide you with consistent high quality items for your salad bar.

Consider the following ingredients to use in your salad bar:

SEASONAL SALAD BAR ITEMS

Asparagus Shredded Cabbage Artichoke Hearts Radishes Sliced Eggs Scallions Tuna Flakes Bleu Cheese Chopped Olives Strawberries Plums GARNISHES Kale Parsley Green Leaf Nappa	Pineapple Tidbit Cheddar Cheese Diced Chicken Almonds Red Onions Scallions Strawberries Plums Orange Flesh Melon Casaba Melon Grapes GARNISHES Kale Parsley Green Leaf Red Chard
Strawberries Grapes Kiwi Satsuma Tangerines Canned Peaches Corn Relish Pickled Beets Sauerkra Green Beans Sliced Zucchini Garbanzo Beans Diced Avocados Sweet Red Peppers GARNISHES Parsley Green Leaf Escarole Red Chard Flowering Kale	Natural Oranges Tangerines Pears Egg Salad Marinated Vegetables Grapefruit Swiss Onion Rings Kidney Beans Potato Salad 3-Bean Salad Asian Pears GARNISHES Flowering Kale Green Leaf Nappa

SPECIAL EVENT SALAD BARS

PROFITABILITY

There are six major variables that affect the cost of the food per plate selected by the customer. Following is a discussion of each area:

COST OF SALAD BAR INGREDIENTS

Ready-to-eat food cost for each salad bar item can be classified as inexpensive (up to 4.9 cents per ounce), medium cost (5 - 9.9 cents per ounce), and expensive (10 cents plus). Here are some typical examples:

Inexpensive: Lettuce, carrots, celery, bean sprouts, eggs, cucumbers, three bean salad

Medium Cost: Spinach, Avocados, cottage cheese, water chestnuts, granola, corn chips

Expensive: Meats, seafood, nuts, bacon bits, some fresh fruit, cheese

Salad bars should be designed to produce a specific profit. The ingredients can be varied increasing or decreasing the range of expensive or inexpensive products to achieve the food cost you desire. Or a mix of selections can be designed that is comprised of high, medium, low-cost products that average out to the targeted cost per customer or food cost percentage you desire. If results don't compare with your targets, adjustments should be made on a daily basis to bring performance in line. Items that increase dramatically in cost, for example, must be immediately eliminated.

ARRANGEMENT OF INGREDIENTS

Inexpensive items should be placed first, close to the customer, and it should be easy for the customer to obtain large quantities of these items. Medium cost ingredients should be placed next and necessitate a moderate reach. The most expensive items should be placed last in the arrangement and/or located high in the center under the sneeze guard, where they are difficult to reach.

SIZE AND SHAPE OF DISPLAY CONTAINER

If it is possible, vary the size and shape of display containers on the salad bar. This step can help lead patrons to take more of one item and less of another. Inexpensive items should be in larger containers with low sides so that the contents are easily visible to patrons. At the other extreme, the most expensive ingredients should be placed in smaller or high-sided containers so items are more difficult to see and remove.

TYPE OF SERVING IMPLEMENT

While sanitation considerations are important in selecting utensils for the salad bar, carefully chosen implements can also help control the portions most customers take. Inexpensive items should have implements that can be easily handled and hold a large amount of the product. As these ingredients come first on the salad bar, plates tend to be filled up early so that there is less room on the plate for more expensive items further down the line. Expensive ingredients should have utensils that make it somewhat more difficult to portion out the item. Be careful not to take this to an extreme by making expensive items too difficult to get at. The intended goal should be to make expensive items relatively hard to get so that indiscriminate diners don't load up on crab instead of carrots.

SIZE OF BOWL, PLATE OR PLATTER

The size, height of the sides and width of the rim of the bowl, plate or platter will determine the number of ounces that can be placed there. As an example, a 9.5 in. x 6.5 in. x 5/8 in. platter may hold a maximum of 24 ounces of ingredients: the quantity taken by the customers will likely average about 18 ounces. Dishware can be selected that will hold no more than a maximum of 8 ounces while other pieces will hold more than 40 ounces.

CUSTOMER RETURN FACTOR

The number of times a customer returns to the bar affects the total cost.

FOOD COST

The most important food cost factor is the actual cost per ounce for each salad bar ingredient. This is found by dividing the ready-to-eat weight into the raw food cost. - Reliable data can then be obtained through the use of a simple calculation: Use an example of a case of 15 ct. cantaloupes which costs $20. A case average is about 38lbs. which gives us an "each weight" of 2.5 lbs. (38 divided by15) and an "each cost" of $1.33 (20.00 divided by 15).

Determine the portion of the original product which can actually be used. Here are some typical waste percentage of several products.

Using the information from the table above, if a cantaloupe weights 2.5lbs. (40 ounces) then the usable product is 19 ounces (.53) x 40 = 31.

Finally you must set a sell price for your salad bar based on a mark up over what an average salad bar trip would cost. To calculate the cost of an average salad, first take the cost per ounce for each item, add them together and divide by the number of items.

For example:

Take this cost and multiply it by the average ounces of product used by a customer in a salad. Research shows that this is approximately 17.5 ounces. (This of course will vary on the plate size as well as customer preferences at your particular restaurant.) 17.5 x 4.6c = 80.5c. You can also add about 7c per customer for unusable leftovers, water or ice and garnishes making our salad cost in this example 87.5c. If you mark up your salad 100% then your sell price would be $1.75 or rounded to a more commonly accepted number of say $1.79.

Labor cost cannot be forgotten either. This must be monitored just as closely as food cost. Your most efficient employee should be a consideration for the salad bar position, but use a modified time table for figuring your labor cost. This will compensate for other employees covering the shift.

There are other ways of pricing a salad bar and you may have one which works well for you, just be sure to use a system which is profitable and easy to maintain.

Copyright © 1997 by SYSCO Food Services of Portland, inc. All rights reserved.