theoruxben Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 I am not sure if this will be a controversial topic but I am curious about how some go about "waste management". Having talked to a few "seasoned vets" over the years I've heard a few things. Here are a few that surprised me when heard them. "Hardly anybody checks dates. Sell it til someone notices." "I will leave soda in sometimes 6 months past, except Diets. Besides, it's only a best taste date." "Crinkle the dates on chips so it is not viewable. If someone notices it is expired play dumb, must've missed it." Now I am almost certain these all came from route drivers as apposed to the owners who fear fines or having to pull out machines. I was just curious if anyone on here is/was ever guilty of letting some products slide a few weeks past every now and then(ala CVS, supermarkets, and delis), or are most views on here that everything past date must go, no exceptions. be honest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 I try to rotate my stock so that I don't have this problem at all. I do NOT want to give my customers anything to be unhappy about. With that said, here's my general ideology. Canned soda: I usually let this ride until I notice that it's expiring or expired. Non-diet cans last a long time and it's usually a best bet to believe that they aren't expired, unless your account really sucks. I pay more attention to diet soda and throw them out when they are expired. Bottled soda: Same as canned soda but bottles last much less. If I am having an issue with expired soda, I usually stop putting that type in the machine and switch to something else. I actually have an account that does about $30/week in canned soda and about 90% of the sales are mt. dew and pepsi only. The diet dew, diet pepsi, and diet coke are empty. I mention that because IF I had a bottle account that had expired diet sodas, I would just pull those selections. I throw out expires. Chips: I throw out expires. If they will expire over the weekend and I feel that they will sell by the next weekday, I will let them ride, then pull them next time I do my inventory if need be. Pastries: Throw out expires. I don't mess around with expired pastries at all. Candy: I have no way of knowing if they are expired so I don't mess with them unless a customer says they are bad... then I take a "sample" (by either eating one or letting the customer do it) to see if the others are good/bad. Basically, I try to keep my customers happy. If an account is producing expired products, it's time to pull the equipment or put something else in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theoruxben Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share Posted June 30, 2012 hey angry, from what you said, I am going to assume that you have mostly high volume accounts. I find waste is almost impossible to control. for example, on an average week of servicing, I will bring back about 4-5 cases of soda, and about 70-80 chips/cake/cookies items mixed. Keep in mind, I am servicing 70 accounts per week on average. I don't break it down percentage wise, but does that sound like to much waste I am bringing back? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKK Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 You should know what sells and what doesn't. You don't fill it with diet coke or gum if u sell one a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 Woah yeah that is way too much spoilage what are ur accts averaging. Tkk sometimes u need to stock a poor seller to keep a mgr happy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted July 1, 2012 Share Posted July 1, 2012 My accounts are not "high volume" for vending standards. I just keep my machines stocked at "par" level. I won't put 10 lays potato chips in a selection when I know that I will only sell 5 bags in a month! I would look at your gross revenue and compare it to your waste. If your waste accounts for more than say 2% of gross revenue, I would say that you are really losing out. I probably throw out maybe 10 cases of mixed soda each year! I probably throw out 10 chips per month. About your accounts, they MIGHT be overstocked or just really slow locations. Your best bet is to take the locations that really do poorly and relocate the machines if possible, especially if the equipment is good solid equipment and not old junk that cannot be upgraded. I would take any AP6000/7000 series or newer AP as well as any National 147 or newer and pull them out of any slow locations and move them into new larger accounts that do at least $70/week. Those snack machines can really be upgraded pretty decently if done right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis23 Posted July 1, 2012 Share Posted July 1, 2012 Every date that will not make it to the next delivery must go. Losing customers is something I never wanted to do and that is the reason for my policy. Have I ever missed a date? Yes but it is rare. Setting par levels for an account and marking the machines with masking tape is a good way to hold down on stales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theoruxben Posted July 1, 2012 Author Share Posted July 1, 2012 Angry, I am not sure what state you work out of, but that almost seems impossible, unless you are selling a lot off the fact that most people don't check dates, and if they do, occasionally ask for a refund. You are right though, it probably comes down to the account being good, more then any system. We use handhelds for inventory, and through that we forecast for pre kitting. Sometimes I almost feel this creates more waste then when we used to just pic off the truck. But as far as your number of waste, it almost seems unfathomable. Also waste related. I just came from getting my car tires done. The place had vending machines from a somewhat largely known company here. Of course the soda I get was past date. I swear, whenever I get something that i know i always have a hard time selling from a machine, its always expired. But whatever, it tasted fine, and I know how it is, I am not going to whine. But in the snack, I noticed the machine had expired products all the way in the back of each row, and like super old(3-4 month past). And to be honest, I have noticed this throughout the years in other machine. Do you think its more, a route driver saving cuts from his commission, so he just leaves them in there as long as he can, or they are old school/no computers type company? I am assuming the first Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theoruxben Posted July 1, 2012 Author Share Posted July 1, 2012 An angry, not trying to question you, its just rather impressive your waste control. I would have just guessed what I bring back was closer to average. I Guess I am way off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walta Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I have a few operators will have 1 selection set to ½ price all the out dated chips go in that selection. Others give it to the person that hands out refunds and clean around the machines. It is a shame that you can’t exchange out of date product the way bars do old beer. Walta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Woah yeah that is way too much spoilage what are ur accts averaging. Tkk sometimes u need to stock a poor seller to keep a mgr happy Agreed. The $ value of product I lose to out of date is less than 0.5% of my sales. Limiting out of date is something you have to constantly work at. With that many accounts it should not be a problem to deal with it. Things you can do: Look at how the Dex data is being used. Compare par levels to numbers sold between services. If you typically sell 5 units between services then why keep the machine stocked with 15? You can also do this manually with "placemarking", where you partially fill a row and then put a index card in the last slot in the back. The next time you service you can see by how far the index card has moved forward how many units you sold. Write it on the card, restock selection, and put the card in the back again. For me, I don't like to stock more in a machine that won't be sold within 3-4 service visits. Introduce more product variety, look for products with long expiration dates like Bugles and Cheez-its. It may sound counter intuitive but if you have 6-8 selections in each machine that are changed on a regular basis you keep people interested. When it comes time to change out selections you switch the Bugles for the Dill chips, or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Another comment, the date are generally referred to as "best by" dates by the manufacturers. Frito Lay has some of the shortest date codes on them because they want to have 99.5% of their product to be satisfactory to their consumers. General Mills (Bugles, Chex Mix) by contrast has a much longer date code because they consider 98% satisfactory. We all know that the product doesn't go bad overnight once the date passes. I have personally eaten chips 6 months past their date with no ill effects, they did taste stale though. The marketing guys all say that "perception is reality" and the consumer perceives that the product is not longer good past the date, thus I try to remove the product before it expires to prevent any problems. Is it worth it to risk losing a account over a bag of chips or pastry item that cost less than a $1.00? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Angry, I am not sure what state you work out of, but that almost seems impossible, unless you are selling a lot off the fact that most people don't check dates, and if they do, occasionally ask for a refund. You are right though, it probably comes down to the account being good, more then any system. We use handhelds for inventory, and through that we forecast for pre kitting. Sometimes I almost feel this creates more waste then when we used to just pic off the truck. But as far as your number of waste, it almost seems unfathomable. Also waste related. I just came from getting my car tires done. The place had vending machines from a somewhat largely known company here. Of course the soda I get was past date. I swear, whenever I get something that i know i always have a hard time selling from a machine, its always expired. But whatever, it tasted fine, and I know how it is, I am not going to whine. But in the snack, I noticed the machine had expired products all the way in the back of each row, and like super old(3-4 month past). And to be honest, I have noticed this throughout the years in other machine. Do you think its more, a route driver saving cuts from his commission, so he just leaves them in there as long as he can, or they are old school/no computers type company? I am assuming the first Well, firstly, it's important to understand that I started my business only 2 years ago from scratch and so I do not have a huge amount of gross income. However, I used to work as a route driver and averaged about $8,000/week in sales (paid hourly, no commission) and eventually jumped up to around $12,000/week for a few months before dropping back down to a measly $4,000/week and having an injury on the job that caused me to make the decision to leave the company. The point is that I do have plenty of experience in vending and have done accounts that did anywhere from $5/week to $15,000+/week(I did not service this account by myself though). I do like to believe that I have excellent waste control because I learned how detrimental it was to a vending company years ago. I always made an effort to keep waste to a minimum. I keep very low-tech policies in place (much like the index card trick) and I don't even bother with any scanners, dex, inventory software, or anything else like that. However, it's important to mention that there were route drivers that would fill a bottle machine, like a 501E, 100% full with the mindset that they would never have to fill it again for months! This is absolutely terrible and it's simply lazy. My mentality is that you need to work harder and keep things at par level so that they don't expire and eat up your profits. If you think that I am exaggerating, that's fine, I have no need to prove anything. However, your concerns seem to be regarding how to control waste. I think the better question to ask here is... why do you throw so much away? If almost every bottled soda that I get has at least 2 months date on it before it expires, and I have to throw out a case, that means that I left it in there for at least 2 months without checking the dates on it. I will specifically check dates on items that I KNOW move slower and pull them out if necessary in order to put them into a faster moving location. Example: just last week I had a location that probably sells a case of Mountain Dew every 3 months! In comparison, this same account sometimes sells 1 or 2 cases of Water and Pepsi, each, every WEEK! When I noticed that I only had about 2 weeks left on about 8 bottles of Mountain Dew before they would expired, I pulled them all, put new Mountain Dew in the machine, took those 8 bottles to an account that will sell it in a few days, and put newer Mountain Dew on top of those to keep the account fully stocked. It takes extra work but it keeps my profits higher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CajunCandy Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 After starting my vending business in January of this year I'v learned not to keep on hand Doritos or Corn chips! It does not sell here down south Louisiana. Lays classic, bbq, almost anything spicy sells good and cuts down on spoilage because they last much longer! I don't keep out of date chips or pastry in my machines, I will give them to the workers where I service machine. They always take them and eat them! I also rotate any stock I have at home to be sure the older stuff goes in the better selling accounts. Just like my bottle machine I will not keep diet coke on hand because of it goes bad faster, will buy it at wal-mart the day I service machine and get the newest on hand, good thing wal-mart is only a mile from my house! My problem is everybody wants a soda machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this a part time vending business??? LOL! Good thing I work shift work and work two and off two days, able to run machines on days off, what days off and right back to work on my good paying job! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Precious Roy Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 I thought doritos where good sellers just about everywhere. I couldn't sell classic lays for my life. Ended up letting the kids eat them. I thought about running a "sale" on expired items to dispose of them. If the customers are like me though they will just wait for it to go on sale when they know it'll be half off. I don't want them trained to be cheap any more than they already are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 hey angry, from what you said, I am going to assume that you have mostly high volume accounts. I find waste is almost impossible to control. for example, on an average week of servicing, I will bring back about 4-5 cases of soda, and about 70-80 chips/cake/cookies items mixed. Keep in mind, I am servicing 70 accounts per week on average. I don't break it down percentage wise, but does that sound like to much waste I am bringing back? If you are servicing 70 accounts per week and having that much expire then you need to run much lower inventory levels in your machines and truck. Only buy what you need for the week at Sam's, or wherever, and check the dates on everything before hitting the checkout line. Fill the machines only 1/3 or 1/2 instead of full. Look for items that have longer dates, pretzels and zoo animal crackers for example. By reducing inventory levels you should be able to reduce your out of date problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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