Do you have a salad bar, sandwich shop or burger joint? If you don’t have a tomato slicer in the back-of-the house, your kitchen staff is spending a lot of time on a task that you could improve with a minimal investment in commercial food prep equipment. Often when we suggest looking into food processors to start up or smaller foodservice operators, they back away because they automatically think of pricier, automated machines. While automatic food processors are great, there are a variety of manual food processors, including vegetable cutters, fry cutters and tomato slicers, that offer a quick payback by reducing labor through time savings.
By outfitting your kitchen with a tomato slicer, you’re staff can prepare freshly sliced tomatoes that are consistently sliced improving presentation and portion control in much less time than cutting by hand would require. Because tomatoes are soft but require pressure and a sharp blade to cut through the skin without damaging the fruit, a tomato slicer can often provide a much more attractive and consistent slice.
These slicers are unique from other vegetable cutters because the pusher on a tomato slicer is curved to wrap around the tomato so that it doesn’t bruise or damage the fruit as it is pushed onto the blade. Some tomato slicers have the blades installed at a slight angle to apply pressure on the tomato gradually rather than over the whole fruit at one time so the tomato isn’t damaged or crushed during the slicing process. Tomato slicers are also a great solution for slicing other delicate fruits and vegetables like mushrooms, strawberries and oranges.
Most tomato slicers have a removable blade unit assembly that can be changed to a different slice size as well as more easily cleaned. Blade assemblies are available to provide 3/16”, 7/32”, ¼” and 3/8” thick slices. Manual tomato slicers are available on Cook’s Direct from a wide variety of manufacturers including Nemco Tomato Slicers, Vollrath Tomato Slicers, and more.
