Blog #3: So Much to Be Changed & Researched; Benchmarking

Ella Lawley
Nov 16, 2017
3 min read

This week we decided as a group to try and perfect the ingredients in the Boudin balls because many different ingredients can be used to perfect the product as well as add texture and flavor to the product. We did a trial run on Wednesday doing a couple of different things listed below as a trial/error of the product.

Tried adding texturized vegetable protein (TVP) as a protein:
Result: had a real gritty texture and that going to be used to bind the product, but gritty texture was still there after baking so decided against it
Tried to make a gluten free batch using Oats instead of breadcrumbs:
Result: They did not form into balls well so added potato starch as well to help form the ball. It ended up making a gooey texture and was still very gooey after cooking
Tried to bake the boudin balls as a healthy standpoint:
Result: The balls tasted well and seem to be getting the taste we want down. However, the appearance of the boudin balls were not as good and you want them to

After doing the multiple trials we decided to look into doing a gluten free breadcrumb instead of the oats, which is double the price of regular breadcrumb but the gluten free is a more expensive market anyways so would increase price but okay in the market we would be selling to. We are going to try using that after the week of thanksgiving. If it does not work we are going to stick to normal breadcrumbs. We also decided on frying the product with outside breadcrumbs due to the appearance it gives off rather than the baking looking plain. Below is a list of the ingredients we are using with this weeks grams of each ingredient listed.

This was the Ingredients used this week in our trial:

Garlic powder- 4.37g
Black Pepper- 4 g
Cayenne- 2.47 g
Onion powder – 3.65 g
Paprika- 2.51 g
Thyme- 2.08 g
Salt- 12.18 g
Jalepeno-108.06g
Oats (breadcrumbs)- 70g
Rice- 2 cups – 381.10g
Chicken breast
499.04g
488.78g
Liver total: 289 g
Potato Starch 2% of meat
20.90 g

Also started collected prices over our ingredients so that we can start to break down numbers and get the prices for our product and if we need to subtract or add a substitute product.

Ingredient with Prices in Bulk from Sam’s:

Garlic Powder- 7.98 (21ounces) Member’s Mark

Black Peppe- 8.58 (18 ounces) Member’s Mark

Cayenne- 5.98 (16 ounces) Member’s Mark

Onion Powder- 6.18 (20 ounces) Member’s Mark

Paprika-7.58 (18 ounce) Member’s Mark

Thyme-6.88 (7 ounces) Member’s Mark

Salt-1.64 (4lb. box) Morton’s

Jalepeno-(Not sold in bulk locally)

Breadcrumbs-5.98 (21 ounces) McCormicks

Rice-8.48 (12 pounds) Uncle Ben’s

Chicken Breast-1.50/pound

Chicken Livers-(Not sold in bulk locally)

Last thing was went to three different stores to see about meatball packages sold in the area and how they were sold. This is a few of the meatballs that we found in different package sizes and prices and over the break going to break down the numbers to see what range we are competing in with adding a few cents for the gluten free product over the normal non-gluten free products.

Market Meatballs:

Sams: