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Al Dentes’ uses 175 different ingredients (dried, granulated and powdered), along with  liquid and encapsulated oils, to create 80 to 100 custom blends. The company has become  the largest supplier of dried spices, herbs and seasonings in the Las Vegas metro area.  It also provides custom and private-label products in Hawaii and the western United States. The company can take any existing blend and adjust it to suit a chef’s liking or convert a blend  to purer raw materials. Because of the volume of spices they use, they can also convert raw materials  to ones with better price points, according to Matthew McClure, Al Dentes’ general manager.  Al Dentes’ Provisions decided to purchase a Munson Model HD-2-1/2-5-SS horizontal ribbon  blender with a 25-cu.-ft. capacity. Because properly mixing each spice blend is critical to Al Dentes’ success,  the company wanted equipment that would produce a fully incorporated, homogenous mix. The Munson blender is now used for all of Al Dentes’ seasoning blends, with three to eight batches  running each day. The ingredients are delivered manually to the blender via totes. Staging and weighing  take approximately 30 minutes; the blending time is generally an hour regardless of the batch size,  says McClure. Once blended, the mix is discharged into a tote via a manually activated paddle gate. Al Dentes’ bulk densities run from one extreme to the other. Al Dentes has very heavy, granulated  elements like salt, sugar and garlic that it typically runs in 800-pound batches. On the other extreme  is an herb blend like its Italian seasoning, which includes a mixture of light, fluffy dried herbs.  With this mix, a batch of equivalent volume would weigh only 200 pounds. Regardless of the bulk  density or type of material, the blender’s split, double helical agitator with its 2:1 length-to-diameter ratio  promotes the thorough mixing of all the ingredients during loading, blending and discharge.  Powered by a 10hp motor with a shaft-mounted drive, the agitator is flange mounted for easy  access and cleanability. Tight tolerances of 1/16 to 1/32 in. between the ribbon blades and blender trough minimize the amount of  residual product in the machine after discharge, which is a big advantage to clean-out. All the surfaces that  …

Future strategies for restaurant system operation and ownership and new approaches for brand management were highlighted in two recent Cornell hospitality roundtables, as detailed in …