Deli Salads Grow Up

May 2001

Deli Salads Grow UpBy Kimberly J. DeckerContributing Editor

Almost like some biological trigger, simply turning the calendar page from April to May ushers in salad season. Gone are the heavy stews and roasts of the winter months; instead, it’s time for cool, crisp, and infinitely refreshing salads. And because no one likes to slave over a stove in summer’s heat, consumers should thank the kitchen gods for the array of prepared salads ready and waiting at the grocery store or local deli. Whereas not too long ago the only options were standard potato, macaroni and ambrosia, today’s deli salads read like a map of the world, with Middle Eastern tabbouleh sharing its borders in the deli case with Mediterranean pasta and sesame-kissed Asian-inspired noodles. With picnic season soon in full swing, wise foodservice professionals know to gear up for the onslaught of salad-seeking shoppers. With a little deli salad know-how, meeting that demand is as easy as…salad!Past, present and futureAccording to Ophie Cordero, vice president of research and development, Orval Kent Food Company Inc., Wheeling, IL, the term “deli salad” covers some fairly broad territory, with any prepared salad product that’s sold through a deli, market, grocery chain, foodservice operator or distributor, or warehouse store falling into the category. So not only does this encompass a wider variety of product than just old-fashioned coleslaw and three-bean salad, but it also includes customers at delis, club stores, schools, airlines and corporate headquarters. Whether the salad appears as a side dish at a catered event or in a pre-packaged container on the local grocery’s self-service deli shelf, it’s a deli salad.George Sideras, executive chef, Sysco Food Services, Cincinnati, notes that salads in these settings usually get there via one of three methods. Often, they arrive as completely prepared items — these are the “commodity” salads, such as the classic potato, egg, coleslaw, ambrosia and macaroni types. With shelf lives on the order of many weeks for unopened product (a real boon when distribution can take up to a couple weeks, notes Cordero), commodity salads can’t quite deliver the just-tossed zing of a bowl of fresh, lightly dressed greens. However, the number of quality improvements and new spins on familiar formulas appearing in this category grows every day. Take, for example, old-fashioned potato salad with a mayonnaise-based dressing. Simply adding a little dill or using skin-on red potatoes and a lighter dressing can lend a welcome upscale distinction to a time-tested product.On the other end of the spectrum, foodservice professionals can prepare salads entirely from scratch. This may prove marketable in small, higher-end supermarkets — especially when consumers will pay a premium for freshness. But when trying to meet very heavy demand, deli professionals may find this route time- and cost-prohibitive.Partly as a solution to the conundrum of producing consistent, fresher-tasting salads in workable quantities and costs, an emerging approach involves what the industry calls “speed-scratch” salads. Particularly popular in casual-dining restaurants, these usually are based on “kits” of individual ingredients, such as prepared produce (grilled IQF vegetables, shredded carrots and washed and trimmed greens), as well as prepared dressings, combined to make fresh salads on the premises with minimum waste and labor output. “It’s really an evolution,” Cordero says, and one that’s driven by the increasingly sophisticated consumers’ desires for fresher products.Also, Cordero sees as boon to speed-scratch salads, the widening demand for salads without as much dressing — as opposed to the traditional manufactured potato and chicken varieties. These drier salads practically require preparation via speed-scratch, if not scratch, methods. Leave some delicate wild lettuces sitting in a mixture of oil and vinegar, and within minutes, that acid will start having its way with the leaves’ cellulose structures, with decidedly limp results. Sideras points to these issues of quality and shelf life as important motivators for the growing popularity of speed-scratch kits, which “allow the operators to determine that shelf-life stability for themselves,” depending on when and in what quantities they put the elements together.As far as shelf-life concerns go, the inclusion of eggs and egg-based products might also immediately pop to mind as a potential safety troublemaker. But when formulated wisely and produced and handled with Good Manufacturing Practices in mind, egg-containing salads should pose no more of a health threat than any other option. Increased use — sometimes mandated by state law — of eggs pasteurized in the shell will help earn eggs a safer reputation. And the high acid content in most mayonnaise preparations can actually boost a salad’s microbial safety. Unfortunately, the amount of acid necessary to lower a salad’s pH to within the range of refrigerator stability sometimes leads to an unpleasantly tart flavor, particularly in egg and potato varieties. With the help of additives such as glucono-delta-lactone (GDL), salad processors have achieved sufficient acidification without producing the detectable organoleptic acidity that often accompanies a comparable amount of citric acid. For example, egg-salad and egg-containing potato-salad prototypes produced by Glucona America Inc., Janesville, WI, have achieved pH levels as low as 4.5 with 0.3% GDL and 4.3 with 0.7% GDL,while pleasing consumers with an acceptable level of tartness.Another important force behind the speed-scratch trend is consistency. Shoppers and diners at national chains expect what they buy to taste just as good this week as it did the last. While a conscientious supplier can easily create consistent commodity salads, the kinds of salads that, in the past, were made from scratch on-site varied widely from day to day. Having a reliable source for high-quality ingredients, dressings and seasonings, each already prepared to agreed-upon standards, is irresistible — especially considering high-turnover rates among foodservice personnel and the difficulty of training new workers. Granted, some items, such as freshly cut tomatoes, are less stable than others, and, “as product developers, we always have to be conscious of that. Our product has to be palatable from the beginning to the end of the shelf life,” says Cordero. Since product developers haven’t harnessed the power of sorcery yet, that may mean leaving some less-stable items out of the mix. Labor saversThe cost of labor also points the market toward speed-scratch salad preparations. Take the case of salad dressings. Not surprisingly, most operators buy dressings. The length and breadth of dressing lines, combined with labor costs, makes it wiser to buy than to make them from scratch. Foodservice operators don’t have to skimp on quality or variety, either. Also consider potatoes, which take a tremendous amount of time to cook and cool. When you can buy prepared potatoes, is it really worth it to pay someone to clean and boil the spuds and then wait until they’re cool enough to dice and slice and at a safe temperature for use in a salad? “It’s almost becoming cost-prohibitive for the operators to do these operations themselves, particularly because they do lend so well to mechanical efficiency,” Sideras says.Food is more or less a fixed cost; explains Sideras, it’s the price of labor that’s controllable. So purchasing a value-added product ends up saving money in reduced waste and lower labor expenditure. Plus, leaving ingredient prep to large-scale providers adds a measure of safety, since these suppliers can properly clean and handle the produce — not an option available to deli personnel trying to wash potatoes and serve customers. “Even with a mechanical dryer available to a restaurant, salad produce still doesn’t get as dry as commercially prepared and dried items,” Sideras notes. And by using the more thoroughly cleaned and dried items, “you’ll reduce your salad-dressing consumption almost 20% by having a dry leaf,” he continues. You’ll also get a better-tasting product, too, since the dressing will adhere better.Matters of tasteSpeaking of tastes, they are a-changin’. While no one’s betting that the good old potato salad of your childhood picnics will go the way of the dodo anytime soon, it’ll have to make room for some new deli-case additions. From where does the inspiration for those new additions come? “The trends always start with the restaurants,” says Cordero. And more and more these days, food processors are relying on corporate chefs to interpret those trends and turn them into workable products. As any restaurant chef will admit, American restaurant-goers are a fickle lot, and those fickle consumers are the same people trolling the deli cases and supermarket aisles looking for what they ordered the night before. So chefs and foodservice operators find themselves in a constant race to stay ahead of the cresting wave of the dining public’s whims and to ensure that they offer what the market is searching for — this week, at least.The population’s growth and changing demographics also has provided the happy windfall of a whole new crop of ethnic flavors and styles to choose from. From spicy, Mexican-style rice salads to Indian curried potato options or cucumbers in a Japanese-inspired rice wine vinaigrette, the range of deli salads is just another part of the changing face of America. But Cordero warns that it’s best to introduce ethnic flavors in measured doses. “If you look at certain urban pockets of the country…the ethnic salads sell like crazy.” This should come as no surprise, considering that many of the shoppers in urban areas hail from the parts of the globe that give the new crop of salads their flavor. But in parts of the country that don’t have as much exposure to an international community, foodservice operators may be better off introducing the changes slowly, since some consumers are loathe to part with their shopping dollars to pay for an unfamiliar item. In this case, introduce a little sesame-flavored tahini here, some balsamic vinegar there, and perhaps just a touch of cilantro or chile garlic sauce to keep curious consumers coming back. After all, even the ubiquitous sun-dried tomato started out as a relative culinary oddity.Salad styles and tastes also vary with the region of the country, Cordero says. Take potato salad, for instance: Its permutations belie its alleged predictability. The East Coast prefers potato salads made with a rich, pale-colored mayonnaise and plenty of onions and salt and pepper — but no discernable sweetness or relishes. On the other hand, Midwestern potato-salad fans look for an eggier, yellow-colored salad with a sweet-tart relish flavor that a New Yorker may reject. Head down to the South and there’s a prevalence of potato salads flavored with mustard. And Californians, who are a little edgier than the rest of America, might spring for a sliced red-skinned potato salad with herbs and a light, yogurt-based dressing. By studying consumer response and culinary fads specific to each region, foodservice operators can pinpoint those salads that will please their whole crop of customers, whether they want tried-and-true or trendy.“Economics play a role in which salads sell better in certain communities,” notes Cordero. Urban consumers and those with a little more disposable income are usually more willing to risk their money on an “exotic” salad variety they’ve never tried before. They also tend to pay more for increased freshness and more expensive ingredients, such as high-quality chunks of white-meat chicken. Again, knowing who lives where and what their buying patterns are can make the difference between hitting the bull’s-eye and missing the mark.Meeting the market needsWhen the time comes to make salads that stand out in a specific market, there are a number of options to work with. Playing with different shapes and flavors of pastas provides a foolproof tactic for jazzing up old-fashioned macaroni salad. Sideras mentions a flavored pasta that exhibits impressive strength under cold-storage situations because of its high flavor content — around 14%, whereas the industry standard hovers around 5%. Another key to ensuring that pasta salad doesn’t wimp out during storage is using a thicker-walled tube, shell or any other shape. These may not be as elegant as thinner-walled varieties, but neither is mushy pasta salad.With other items, the best way to guarantee that a deli salad looks and tastes as sprightly as it did upon first tossing is not to make too much of it at a time (think turnover), and to keep it below 40ºF. Of course, heartier items, such as grains, potatoes, carrot and raisin concoctions, and even some fruit mixes, hold up better than more delicate products. (Processors can extend the shelf life even for these sturdier items — certain types of fruits for fruit salads come to mind — by storing each component of the mix separately in poly bags specially designed for that item’s specific respiratory needs.) But treating each salad as if it were as delicate as a bowl of greens is a good idea.Deli cases tend to fluctuate in temperature because personnel constantly open and close them — they’re made of relatively non-insulating glass, and warm little bodies like to lean on them when Mommy’s buying chicken salad. Ideally, they’d stay around 35ºF, but as long as they don’t go above 40ºF, they’re doing their job well. Some newer models have cool-air circulation mechanisms and a curved glass encasement that helps direct air down onto the product, keeping it cool.Again, making the product appear marketable provides deli operators with a constant mission: stirring the salads so they look moist, making sure that the brightest vegetables and biggest chunks of chicken nestle at the top, decorating them with herbal garnishes, and giving everything a fresh, crisp glow. That attractive look is crucial to bringing more customers into the colorful world of today’s deli salads.

Kimberly Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a bachelor’s degree in consumer food science with a minor in English from the University of California-Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and enjoys cooking and eating food in addition to writing about it.

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