Simplot launches ToHellWithPrep.com to promote Roastworks fruit, vegetables and potatoes

With a struggling economy and rising food costs among the leading foodservice trends this year, how can anything else 2009 has to serve up frighten operators? How about learning how much money they`re wasting by prepping vegetables and fruit from scratch?

ToHellWithPrep.com - a new Web site Simplot Food Group launched over the weekend - gives foodservice operators the frightening truth, as well as the means by which they can extricate themselves from these harrowing circumstances.

"Let`s face it,"says Simplot executive Jayme Mullaney, "prep can be hell. Cutting and roasting raw fruits and vegetables is time-consuming, expensive, and dangerous, plus it`s unpredictable if your prep staff varies from day to day."

Moreover, she says Simplot`s RoastWorks® brand - around which the new Web site and the accompanying "To Hell With Prep"trade-advertising campaign revolves - makes a lot of prep work unnecessary.

"Our delicious, pre-cut, pre-roasted, pre-seasoned products are just what busy operators need to reduce prep time, costs, and waste while providing a quality, consistent, scratch-like ingredient or side,"she says. "Leave all the culling, chopping, peeling, seeding, roasting, and seasoning to Simplot."

The main feature at ToHellWithPrep.com is the cost-savings calculator in the "Wages of Sin"section, which lets foodservice operators compare the cost of using RoastWorks products to preparing comparable ingredients or sides from scratch. The site also provides a continually growing to-die-for recipe collection called "Divine Inspiration"created by Simplot executive chefs Mark Hill and Dianna Fricke.

Later this month foodservice operators and employees can enter a sweepstakes promotion at ToHellWithPrep.com for a chance to win a weekend trip for two to Hell`s Kitchen, N.Y. The prize package includes airfare for two, two night`s lodging in a Manhattan hotel, dinner at Hell`s Kitchen restaurant, and a gift card for expenses.

In addition, ToHellWithPrep.com serves up a humorous video that riffs common pratfalls associated with prep work, a list of the Five Reasons Prep Is Hell, and a section called "Hell`s Angels"that provides detailed information and specifications on the 20 different RoastWorks offerings.

Foodservice operators new to the brand will enjoy the site`s great first-timer`s discount, too. If they complete the form in the "Trial by Fire"section, Simplot will send them a coupon with a graduated price-reduction offer: Buy up to five cases of RoastWorks products and get $3 off per case, buy up to 10 cases and get $5 off per case, or buy more than 10 cases and get $7 off per case.

Pre-roasted, perfectly seasoned, and individually quick-frozen, Simplot RoastWorks vegetables and fruit are designed specifically for foodservice operators as exceptional-quality alternatives to scratch-made ingredients and sides. Consistent, cost-effective, and scrumptious, RoastWorks products give the premium appearance and bold flavor of flame roasting on premise with little fat and zero grams of trans fats.

Chief among the RoastWorks brand`s 20 different vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruits, and blends are Flame-Roasted Peppers &Onions, Roasted Baby Bakers, Flame-Roasted Fuji Apples, Rosemary Roasted Redskins, and Flame-Roasted Corn &Black Bean Fiesta.