Author: Donna

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Send Home the Sauce in Style.

Tired of paying your wait staff to fill takeaway cups with sauces, condiments, and dressings? Portion cups could be the answer.

 

Control Costs and Reduce Waste

Portion cups help restaurants better manage ingredient costs, reduce waste, and maintain steady profits. Additionally, labor costs decrease when your wait staff spends less time filling cups and cleaning up messes.

Consistent Serving Sizes

Sealed, portioned cups can be stored longer.

Pre-measured portions ensure each customer receives the same amount of sauce or dressing, maintaining quality and customer satisfaction. Sealed, portioned cups also extend the shelf life of the cups, as they can be safely stored for more extended periods at home.

Hygiene and Safety

Single-use or individual portions minimize cross-contamination and reduce the risk of spoilage or bacteria transfer, promoting food safety. Allowing your customers to fill their cups can create an unnecessary health hazard.

Related: The Top Portion Controls Every Restaurant Should Be Using

Enhanced Presentation and Perceived Value

Neatly portioned cups contribute to a clean and organized plate presentation, improving the overall dining experience. Cups featuring your logo also enhance your brand image. Portion control helps prevent overuse or messiness, making the experience more enjoyable; customers may also value getting just the right amount.

Upselling Opportunities

Boost retail sales with portion cups. They make it easy for customers to try other flavors the day they bring the carryout home or safely in the future.

Let us know if you’re ready to learn more! Garden Complements can fill a variety of sauces and dressings in portion cups to improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and eliminate messy, back-of-the-house hand-filling.

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Weber Grills: What Are The Safe Internal Temperatures for My Food?

Weber Grills has a great post about the USDA recommended internal temperatures when cooking meat! Check out their handy reference table below and read more on Weber.com.

Product USDA Recommended Internal Temperature

Beef, pork, veal, lamb – steaks, chops and roasts

 145° F
Ground meats  160°F
Ham – fresh or smoked (uncooked) Reheat cooked hams packaged in USDA-inspected plants to 140 °F and all others to 165 °F 
All Poultry –  breasts, whole bird, legs, thighs, and wings, ground poultry, and stuffing 165°F
Eggs 160°F
Fish & Shellfish 145°F
Leftovers 165°F
Casseroles 165°F
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Buy Curley’s Famous Hickory by the bottle at Made in Kansas City

Do you just want a bottle or two of our best-selling Curley’s Famous Hickory? We’ve got the answer!

Made in Kansas City features Kansas City-made products.

We are pleased to announce that you can purchase our best-selling Curley’s Famous Hickory by the bottle at Made in Kansas City stores or online. Made in Kansas City offers Kansas City’s best selection of local goods from over 200 artists & makers.

As a Kansas City company, we couldn’t be more pleased have Curley’s Famous Hickory showcased by our friends at Made in Kansas City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Garden Complements’ response to COVID-19

Our top priority is the health, safety and well-being of our customers, suppliers and employees.

Garden Complements remains committed to delivering quality, safely produced food products and services to our customer channels during this challenging time. We are following the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) recommendations for food manufacturers/wholesalers for managing coronavirus (COVID-19) risk.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has produced a Q&A on the safety of food products.

If you have questions, please contact us. 

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Looking to have your own recipe bottled?

Here’s what you need to know to pack your product for resale…

People rave about your secret-recipe sauce. So much so, that you’re thinking about having it bottled so that people can enjoy it at home. Garden Complements has helped hundreds of customers transform their recipe into a formulation that can be kettle-cooked, and professionally packed in your own custom-labeled packaging.

It’s called Contract Packing. You own the recipe; Garden Complements bottles it for retail.

RELATED: Contract Packing or Private Label? What’s the Difference?

If you are looking to produce a custom product that fits with our expertise, we’d love for you to consider Garden Complements as your contract packaging partner. We strictly adhere to FDA and HACCP management system guidelines and we are a certified Star K Kosher facility.

We work with entrepreneurs dedicated to succeeding and have a well-thought-out business plan and the ability to meet our payment requirements.

Here’s an overview of Garden Complements’ Contract Pack requirements:

  • We offer a wide variety of packaging and sizes including bag in box and portion-control cups with branded foil lids.
  • While we do some cold fill, we are primarily a hot pack food processor.
  • We are not a small batch processor – our minimum batch size is 300 gallons with an upfront commitment of contracting with us to produce this amount at least three times a year.

What we DO pack:

  • Barbecue sauces
  • Pasta and pizza sauces
  • Taco and enchilada sauces
  • Mustards
  • Salad dressings and vinaigrettes
  • Marinades
  • Steak sauces
  • Glazes and finishing sauces
  • Salsas
  • Sweet and sour sauces
  • Teriyaki
  • Wing sauces
  • Spices

What we do NOT pack:

  • Low-acid foods like asparagus
  • Dairy- and egg-based sauces or dressings
  • Chutney, pickles, and relishes

If your product aligns with our requirements, we’d love to work with you! We offer a full range of fee-based consulting services including product development, packaging, nutritional analysis, and labeling. We can also help you with fulfillment and distribution.

Still have questions? Let’s talk.

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Meet our lineup of house products

Quality ingredients and years of experience help us deliver delicious sauces, vegan meals and dressings at a reasonable cost – keeping your customers satisfied while watching your bottom line.

Heritage, Amigo, Campfire and Lems

Heritage Mild and KC Style Barbecue Sauces, Hot and Mild Taco and Enchilada Sauces; Amigo Taco Sauce; Campfire Barbecue Sauce; and Lems Sweet and Sour Sauce are affordable options for foodservice owned by the Company. These products can be private-labeled “as is” or as the base for a custom house blend.

Gaetano’s

Gaetano’s was a popular Italian restaurant in Kansas City’s downtown and later in Lenexa, Kansas. It is a versatile family favorite — delicious on pasta, as a pizza sauce, and more.

Curley’s Famous Barbecue Sauces

It all began in 1955 when Curley Atwood and his wife, Christa, created a tasty sauce to top off their Hickory Burger, which they served at Mrs. Atwood’s Café in Winfield. Curley’s Hickory Barbecue Sauce became so popular that they started bottling the sauce and selling it at their adjacent Curley’s Inn and in the local grocery store.

Curley’s Famous Barbecue Sauces are available in retail and foodservice outlets. The varieties include:

All retail flavors are kosher and gluten-free. Original Hickory and Hot & Spicy are available for foodservice.

Aussie Sauces

The Aussie Sauce brand is owned, produced and distributed by the Company. It includes Beef and Pork Marinade with Aussie Lager; Aussie Sauce – Poultry Marinade & Basting Sauce with Kiwifruit; Aussie Sauce – Steak Sauce with Papaya Nectar.

 

Want to know more about our house products? Give us a call at +1 800.966.1091.

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Contract Packing or Private Label? What’s the Difference?

We get that question a lot. While they are seemingly very similar processes, here's a quick primer on the difference.

Contract Packing is the process that occurs when a customer owns an original recipe and wants it commercially produced. For example, a restaurant operator may bottle a special sauce or dressing for retail sale so customers can enjoy it at home.

contract pack
Contract Packing happens when the customer brings the recipe to us to produce. Private Labeling is when we help the customer develop the recipe and then bottle it.

Before the customer shares the proprietary recipe with us, a Non-Disclosure Agreement is signed. Then, we translate it into a precise formulation for production. Once the formula’s taste and consistency meet with the customer’s satisfaction, we process and pack it for end-use.

Private Labeling happens when a customer turns to us for help developing and bottling a product under the customer’s own brand name. In other words, the the customer is looking to us to help them develop a tasty product that can be labeled as as their very own brand.

We offer a full line of signature brands that can be private-labeled “as-is” or used as the base for a custom sauce, condiment or marinade including:

packaging

The same packaging options exist for both Contract Packing and Private Label. These include bottling for retail sales; and plastic jugs and drums for restaurants, foodservice, institutional use.

If you have your own recipe you’d like to package or if you’d like help developing a signature sauce, dressing or marinade, we can help. Give us a call or send us a note.