We came in early to break the good news to KRAFT. Their salad dressing won us over big time. We made a spreadsheet of the reasons why we chose the company that we did (flavor preference results from taste test, off-invoice billbacks, educational allowances, freebies, etc) and then we made a list of people that we needed to break the news to. Paul negotiated the billback even further before deciding and we let Kraft know before the others. MSU's Sanitarian (Toots) needs to know specific lab values to assure that their product is shelf stable. The pH must be less than 4.6 and it must have a water activity of less than .85. I have been playing the middle man between Kraft and Toots today to get all of the information necessary.
Today we also did a sausage yield test. We are thinking about switching the breakfast sausage and Italian sausage to a Montana Made brand, Redneck. Our thought was that it may have a higher yeild of protein to fat than the brands that we are currently using. We weighed out huge chunks of sausage (5-6 lbs) and then sliced them, grilled them, and heated them up to temp in the oven. We did that with 4 types and then moved them from their greasy pans onto clean pans for re-weighing. A lot of sausage is 60/40 (60% protein: 40% fat) and we were hoping that Redneck was 80/20 which may have made it a better deal, even though it is seemingly more expensive. However, the sausages that we are currently using produced a better yeild of protein.
The rest of the day we are getting things ready for the FSA meeting on Friday.
Tonight I hiked up Lower Mt. Ellis. Beautiful!
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