12 Budget Friendly Tips for Your Frozen Yogurt Toppings Bar 

Two locations that some frozen yogurt shops sometimes overlook when troubleshooting their bottom line is their toppings bar and their produce. It’s a fact that toppings cost more than the frozen yogurt itself, when new frozen yogurt owners realize this they instinctively turn to their toppings bar and try and make what they have last as long as possible.Here are some cost effective tips and tricks to get your produce looking and tasting fresher longer.

Your frozen yogurt toppings bar has some specific qualifications if it’s a communal toppings bar.

Food Service Requirements for Toppings Bars:

• Food shields need to block a direct line between the customer’s mouth and the food in your toppings bar, (your sneeze guard.) It’s popular in frozen yogurt shops to get small containers with a tight fitting lid, or with a lid on a hinge, to act as a sneeze guard. This is also completely within food service regulations.
• A separately designated utensil should belong to each container and no customer is allowed to touch any of the exposed food with their hands.
• Make sure that your toppings bar is constantly at the proper temperature, cleaned and replenished.
• NO SULFITES or sulfiting agents. This a common agent used to preserve fruits and give them a fresh appearance. However, almost every state has a law prohibiting using sulfites in fresh fruits or vegetables intended for raw consumption. Do not feed these to your customers!  
• Your bar should have labels identifying the contents for most toppings
• Customers can only approach your toppings bar with a clean cup.

Tips and Tricks That All Frozen Yogurt Store Owners Should Know

1. Slow down your bananas from ripening.Sometimes bananas are more unpredictable one day they come too green and the next they’re brown already. To slow down the process wrap the end of a bunch with plastic wrap! Better yet, separate each one and cap each with a bit of plastic wrap. This traps the ethylene gas from getting out through the stem.

2. Or if you have a problem with too green bananas, upripe cherries or hard peaches you can speed up ripening by throwing all the unripe fruit into one paper bag. A paper grocery bag works well and fold up the top for a little while, up to a couple hours. The concentrated ethylene gas from all the fruits together help them ripen quicker. If you need to speed things up a little more throw a handful of uncooked white rice in there.

3. Newspaper is an inexpensive odor neutralizer. Use your daily paper to line the bottom of your storefront trash cans. They'll neutralize odor and will absorb any liquid.

4. Organize your fridge produce into clear commercial bins for easy storage and, so you can quickly glance at the fridge to see what inventory you might need.

5. If your fridge has door storage, keep your dairy products fresher longer by keeping them out of this area. The temperature fluctuates too much on the door and milk products can go bad quicker.

6. Dirt and soap deposits can cling to pipes, to go longer without clogging flush out any buildup in your sinks with some hot or boiling water occasionally.

7. Wash AND prevent spoiling. This is especially helpful for berries as they have a quick shelf life. Fill a large commercial food bin with water and 1 cup of vinegar and mix. Now add all your fruit and soak for ten minutes. The water will have removed all waxy film and dirt and leave your fruit sparkling. The vinegar will protect your fruit from softening prematurely too!

8. Don’t slice your fruit too early! Some frozen yogurt shops slice their fruit at the beginning of the week and just refill when their toppings bar gets low.

9. This encourages mushiness and will result in wasted produce. Slice throughout the day when the supply looks low. This will keep the bar looking fresh and delicious.

Keep a roll of masking tape and a sharpie near the fridge area so you can label containers with their open date. This will help you from having to do guess work and communicate with your employees better. This is ideal for milk products, or overcut produce.

10. A spreadsheet taped to your fridge is, also, a great way to keep track of inventory and let you know what’s in your fridge without having to look through all the contents.

11. Keep fruit from browning by mixing one part honey and two parts water and pouring over cut fruit. This works the same as squeezing lemon juice over your produce to keep it from browning but is less flavor intrusive than acidic lemon. Do make sure though that you don’t add too much to your cut fruit as water causes mushiness. Or you could always try this in a pinch:

12. Bonus Office Tip!

If you’re anything like me, your workspace can get a little cluttered with all the cables, cords, and chargers. Keep it off the desk with some simple binder clips! Still easily accessible but out of the way!