Hormel Foods is changing the foodservice industry’s perspective on fully cooked bacon offerings. With HORMEL® BACON 1™ Sliced Bacon, operators can offer their customers a practical and convenient alternative to cooked-from-raw without sacrificing the flavour or meaty texture customers know and love.
HORMEL® BACON 1™ Sliced Bacon is a product that checks all the boxes. Produced using only premium centre cut bellies, it is naturally smoked with a blend of distinctive hardwoods to deliver the perfect smoked bacon taste. Slices come cooked to a light doneness level, giving operators plenty of flexibility to achieve the desired outcomes within seconds rather than spending the time and manpower to cook bacon from raw.
HORMEL® BACON 1™ Sliced Bacon is proving that you don’t have to settle for traditional microwave cooked bacon from grocery stores that is thin, brittle, and lacks the fulsome flavour of premium smoked bacon.
“When cooked bacon was originally developed, it was typically microwave production which draws moisture out and creates shrinkage,” says Dan Glendinning, country manager, Canada Foodservice for Hormel Foods Canada. “It tends to be brittle and lacks flavour, so is typically relegated to QSR breakfast sandwiches and burgers. In other words, any place you could hide it under a bun where you couldn’t see it. Traditionalists couldn’t use it because the flavour and appearance were simply not there, so they are stuck with cooking from raw.”
Cooking from raw however brings numerous challenges, including the time spent cooking (it can take upwards of 15 minutes to cook a full tray in the oven, or 10 to 12 minutes on a flat top), and holding the product for extended periods of time. Often, kitchens will over or underestimate their daily quotas, leading to shortages or food waste – not to mention the occasional burnt offerings when the cooking is not monitored properly.
“With HORMEL® BACON 1™ Sliced Bacon, operators can replicate cooking from raw without having to cook large batches in the morning and leaving them in steam tables throughout the day,” says Glendinning. “Cooks can simply heat what they want in a matter of seconds and achieve the same texture and flavour of cooked from raw and deliver something they can be proud to put on a plate. It’s a product that’s still packed with flavour, so chefs don’t have to compromise the bacon flavour of any dish.”
HORMEL® BACON 1™ Sliced Bacon can replicate fully cooked bacon, offering operators endless opportunities to upsell traditional items such as burgers or expand their menu items, he adds. “Innovation is everything in foodservice. It’s all about upping the quality of your offerings to satisfy more customers. Bacon continues to be a hot item that can be used in so many applications. It never goes out of favour. The demand is always there.”
