Even if your chefs make stock from scratch, you should consider using commercial soup bases to boost flavor and improve the color of your soups. Since animal products today are much leaner than in the past, they cannot impart the necessary depth of flavor required to make delicious soup. That's where canned soup base appears. Adding even trace amounts to homemade stocks instantly gives your restaurant's soups that professional look and taste without adding time to food preparation.

If you're an independent owner-operator of a small food establishment, you'll have a greater need for commercial soup bases. Using dry soup bases to prepare daily soups means you don't have to hire a chef and you can spend more time running your business. Soup bases are a plentiful product and you only need to keep a few points in mind when buying them:

1. Reach out for the well known soup manufacturers that most professional cooks and chefs rely on.

2. Deal with soup base suppliers for greater product selection.

3. Consider cream soup base to enliven your menu.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Contact a soup base manufacturer directly when you're sure about which brand you prefer

If you've had success with a certain brand of soup base in the past, there's no reason to change. You can order directly from the manufacturer of your choice.

I recommend: Redi-Base manufactures a complete line of dry soup bases that chefs use to make soups, stocks, gravies and sauces. Its products have a long shelf life and do not contain MSG. Allied Foods makes kosher-certified chicken soup base and vegetarian soup base widely used by professional kitchens, chiefly in the northeast. Williams-West & Witt's Products Company has manufactured premium quality food bases since 1948.

Use suppliers for a wider selection of natural soup bases

Dealing with a supplier gives you greater product selection. If you don't like one manufacturer's soup bases, you simply try another.

I recommend: All Serve maintains a toll free number for its customers to use when they have questions about using any of its products. The company also does not require a minimum amount for your purchase order. Food Service Direct is a Virginia company that prides itself on its excellent customer service. Its staff will help you find the product you're looking for even if Food Service Direct doesn't supply it.

Try cream soup base to add more variety to your menu

Though many chefs depend on soup bases for only chicken broth or beef broth, today's improved cream soup bases can produce equally appealing cream soups.

I recommend: Vanee Foods Company, established in 1950, nationally distributes a full line of professional cooking products, including a superb cream soup base. Family owned and operated DePalo & Sons, Inc. has operated out of Maryland for 25 years as a major supplier of thousands of food products to the restaurant industry.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  The most efficient and economical use of soup bases for independently run restaurants today is to begin with the previous day's meat or poultry leftovers. Then, add the concentrate soup base along with water, tomatoes and wine or cream. Finish off with spices and natural seasonings, such as freshly minced garlic, parsley and dried or fresh herbs.