Sponsored by Wayne-Sanderson Farms, LLC.
Here is a bit of good news for restaurant operators with hiring headaches: the restaurant employment outlook seems to be slowly improving.
Restaurant job growth gained momentum in July, according to a National Restaurant Association economic analysis. Eating and drinking places added a net 74,100 jobs that month, which also marked the 19th consecutive month of employment growth in the industry. Nevertheless, “a strong majority of restaurants are still actively seeking to fill positions—even as they face the building headwinds of a slowing economy,” says the Association.
Operators can ease their labor concerns by using more prepared foods and cooking less from scratch. There are many high-quality, fully cooked foods that offer wide customer appeal and consistent quality as well as labor efficiency.
The fully cooked difference
Fully cooked chicken wings, one of America’s most popular finger foods, are prominent examples. They are ready to heat and serve with minimal labor and skill requirements.
The alternative to choosing ready-to-use wings is dealing with the labor, training and food-safety concerns of working with raw chicken wings.
In contrast, getting a head start by using fully cooked wings reduces training requirements and avoids problems. “You're not going to worry about training people to handle raw product,” says Beau Batchelor, corporate research chef for product development at Wayne-Sanderson Farms, which has a portfolio of three fully cooked wings brands. “You don't have to worry about employees changing cutting boards and changing gloves. Instead, you’re basically just going to portion out that product and fire it when the time comes.”
“Using a fully cooked product lends itself to repeatability and delivering the best possible customer experience every time, and that pays you back,” adds Batchelor.
And from a business standpoint, the ability to quickly rethermalize and serve wing orders “is going to reduce your pickup times and allow you to do more turnover, have more people in the seats and have more checks,” says Batchelor.
Furthermore, the time chefs save by using fully cooked chicken wings can be deployed in other useful ways, such as creating signature wing sauces that make the restaurant stand out from the competition. “We’ve given you the canvas,” says Batchelor. “Now you can go paint your picture.”
Power of the portfolio
The Wayne-Sanderson Farms portfolio of fully cooked wings meets the needs of foodservice operators who can benefit from having signature wings on their menus but do not have a lot of time, expertise and labor budget for product development.They make it possible for even an understaffed kitchen to serve outstanding wings.
Buffaloos: These chicken wings, available in bone-in and boneless chunks, have the bold and tangy classic Buffalo-style flavor profile.
Crispy Fliers: These wings deliver a consistent, craveable crunch. Available boneless or bone-in and mild or spicy, they can be customized with a vast array of sauces, rubs and seasonings.
Fly’n Saucers: This new brand of fully cooked chicken wings is available steamed or roasted, and adaptable to a wide variety of preparation styles and sauces.
Nice, sticky and craveable
Another time saving results from the fact that fully cooked wings are available with flavor profiles and textures that would be difficult to replicate in the kitchen with raw chicken wings.
“We enhance the crispness and crunchiness of the wings and improve their ability to hold sauce and be nice and sticky and craveable,” says Batchelor. “Those are some of the advantages of fully cooked wings in addition to those enhanced pickup times.”
For an example of how fully cooked wings streamline kitchen labor, consider a recipe like Hoisin Glazed Sticky Crispy Fliers, based on Crispy Fliers wings. It takes only 10 minutes to simmer a glaze of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, gochujang and honey. Then simply deep fry the Crispy Fliers for 7 to 9 minutes and toss them in the hoisin glaze.
Similarly, it is short work to prepare Rosemary Honey Roasted Saucers with Fly’n Saucers wings, which can be rethermalized from a frozen state in 15 minutes in a convection or conventional oven and tossed in a glaze of honey, soy sauce and apple cider vinegar for 8 to 10 minutes. Take the wings off the heat and add minced fresh rosemary. Finish them off with optional garnishes such as coarse black pepper, scallions and lemon zest. “I find a combination of all three is the best,” says Batchelor.
In a time of persistent hiring challenges, using flavorful, fully cooked chicken wings can ease labor concerns. For more information, visit waynefarms.com/wings.