A commercial food grater can save your employees a ton of time in the kitchen. Prepping is a major chore for most restaurants and can be very time consuming, especially if everything is being done by hand. The process can be sped up greatly just by buying a few food graters and shredders.

Depending on what type of restaurant you run, you may need several types of food graters. These suggestions can help you decide.

1. Use an electric food grater and increase your bottom line by cutting labor. You can dramatically reduce the amount of hours spent on prep just by utilizing a food processor for making soups, dressings and side dishes.

2. Take advantage of one of the most common of metal food graters, the commercial cheese grater. These machines can grate many pounds of cheese in a short time span, which will lessen the time your employees spend prepping for the day.

3. Build a rapport with restaurant guests by having your servers use a manual food grater at the table. These hand-held graters have a small handle to crank to provide fresh cheese or even chocolate.

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

Increase efficiency by using a food processor grater

It is extremely wasteful to pay your employees to stand around chopping food by hand when a commercial food processor could do the same job in a fraction of the time. The initial expense of one of these machines will set you back a bit, but not having to pay several cooks to get hours' worth of prep done, day in and day out, will save you lots in the long run.

I recommend: Use a top-of-the-line food processor cutter from Emiliomiti. The food processor from ChefsFirst can chop up to 16 pounds per minute, and is a must-have for large restaurants.

Bring quality freshness to the table by prepping with commercial cheese graters

These large cheese graters are used mostly in pizzerias and Italian restaurants. Freshly grated cheese is a big selling point so buying a commercial cheese grater is definitely something to consider.

I recommend: Grate up to 110 pounds per hour using the Eurodib 2-9 from Select Appliance. High-volume restaurants might want to look at the IFM Sirman grater from Zesco Products that can process a whopping nine pounds per minute.

Provide excellent table service: give your servers a hand food grater

When a server asks a guest if they would like some freshly grated Parmesan cheese on their entrée, most guests say yes without even thinking. This personal service resonates in customers' minds and increases the chances that they'll return for another meal. Take it up a notch and provide hand-grated chocolate when customers order a decadent dessert.

I recommend: Stock up on plastic hand cheese graters at The WEBstaurant Store. A-Best Fixture Co. sells a hand grater that has three interchangeable drums to allow you to grate, shred and slice, depending on a customer's preference.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Micrograters allow your chefs to use the peel of normally bitter fruits to make flavorful dishes. This tool is basically a standard manual food grater but the grating surface is full of very fine blades that can effectively cut through the hard rind of, say, a lime. It can also be used for spices, like cinnamon.