Backing materials provide the necessary support to stabilize fabrics during embroidery on an embroidery machine. But sturdiness is not the only factor to consider when choosing the right backing for your restaurant's custom logo apparel. 

Most of today’s logoed chef apparel and restaurant workwear needs can be accomplished with three basic backing varieties and a water-soluble top material. In this blog, we’ll discuss the four most common: tear-away, cut-away, light mesh, and Solvy. 

As the least expensive option, tear-away is the most popular backing for many embroidery shops. Tear-away backing saves time in the embroidery process, but overall quality suffers due to its easily frayed and brittle paper-like consistency. Chef Duds only uses tear-away backing in our custom embroidery for baseball hats, where trimming is difficult due to the stiff, structured shape of a finished cap. 

Most chef and restaurant apparel is generally laundered in industrial washing machines, which can damage most embroidered logos. Cut-away is the best all-around backing for sturdiness in embroidery design, providing a crisp, clean finished product. Its tightly woven and compressed texture may be more expensive, but its easily trimmed material holds its shape after many wash cycles. Cut-away is our preferred backing material, we use it for our long-sleeve and short-sleeve chef coats, chef hats, bib aprons, and both kitchen and server work shirts. 
 
Light mesh backing is a thin, inexpensive, cut-away material. As the name implies, it is a loosely woven, compressed material. It works well with thicker types of chef jacket fabrics, adding thickness when combined with regular cut-away backing. 

Lastly, there are water-soluble top materials such as Solvy. This thin, transparent material will dissolve the first time a garment is washed. Solvy helps smooth out rough or uneven material, like the high-piled fleece of towels and fleece outerwear. A second, and often overlooked, feature is its ability to add tension to the top side of the garment. If you find your thread seems to get “sucked” down into the material, adding one or more layers of Solvy can correct this common problem. 

Materials like leather and vinyl are thick enough to not require any backing for custom embroidery. While we infrequently embroider leather and vinyl garments at Chef Duds, it takes special attention to detail in logo digitization to not perforate the material and cut out the entire logo. 

At Chef Duds, you can be assured that your logo will look crisp and clean from the first time you wear your chef uniforms and apparel to the hundredth time.