Newbie with question on frozen vending

[Yummy Vending]

Hello, my name is John (Yummy Vending) and I am new in the vending business, having purchased my first accounts about a month ago. My question is this. Have a nursing home that employees have been screaming for a frozen food vending machine be put in. There is 240 on staff and the closest restaurant is over 9 miles away. They have 30 mins for lunch and are limited to my snack machine and 2 drink machines. Account does about $700-800/Wk in sales. With the above mentioned circumstances on limited food options, what is the forums opinion on placing a frozen machine in this location ? Pros/cons ? Thank you ! I have already gained a significant amount of knowledge from you guys over the last month... John -- Yummy Vending.

[AZVendor]

A frozen food machine would be a good idea to capture the opportunity for additional sales.  Your best option would be an AP320/960 frozen cabinet that can slave to a late model AP snack or it can be run off it's own tower with a coin mech and validator.  The AP320/960 is a full size cabinet with a standard configuration of about 30 selections varying from narrow single spirals for burritos and ice cream to dual spirals for sandwiches and frozen dinners.  It can be slaved to any AP snack model AP120 or newer with the exception of the AP SL line of snack machines. 

 

If you have a USI snack with a SM6 logic board (blue display) you can slave a USI FF2000 frozen to it, but that model is not of a very good design and is small.  The weakest link in the USI frozen machine is its compressor.  There are some newer USI frozen machines but based on the fact that their FF2000 was such a bad design, I haven't recommended USI frozens for a long time.

 

Another option is to install a Fastcorp robotic frozen food machine that is a stand-alone machine.  Their models use a vacuum operated hose that pulls the stacked products out of a chest freezer and delivers them to the customer.  The models to use are the older F631 or newer Z400.  The machine can be set up for a variety of products from ice cream to 6x6 pizzas, but that size is the largest it can handle. 

 

For your best variety visual appearance to the customer the AP320/960 frozen is the best choice.

[Yummy Vending]

AZVendor thank you for the insight on the different options ! What type of markup do frozen food items typically have ? We will be buying most items from Sam's Club. As example, they have Hot Pockets W/ cost of .75, cheeseburgers 1.20, Etc. Thanks again ! John-- Yummy Vending

[AZVendor]

You should always try to double your product cost, called keystoning, or more which will ensure a fair profit.  If you are in a commission arrangement with this account do not pay them anything for the frozen food machine.  It is an expensive investment to make and the return on it is uncertain.  By the way, you mentioned in your duplicate post that you have a 4 wide snack and I was going to ask why you haven't upgraded your snack machine to a 5 wide to better match the sales volume you appear to have at this account? 

[Yummy Vending]

Copy that on the pricing structure. And yes, it is a "comission" account and I understand your point of not paying a comission. Am upgrading the 4-wide to a 5-wide in 2 weeks, moving the 4-wide to an apartment complex. Just bought a local guy out that retired, which had 61 "Coke asset" machines. Most of these are in apartment complexes and auto-repair shops. Am planning on placing snack machine in a cage. Any suggestions on a good source for cages ? The one source I've located would cost me about $1,400 with shipping.

[AZVendor]

You will have to watch Craigslist for good prices on cages or you need to find someone selling used machines in your area that might be sitting on a cage.  Most vendors who have machines in cages don't want to keep the cage sitting around if they lose the account so you might need to wait for one to pop up - don't install your snack without one, especially outside.  There have been two or three on CL here lately and they don't appear to be selling even though a couple are below $500.  I have one in my shop that no one has asked for yet and one with no machine in it any longer that I need to pickup from a customer's location.  It seems that there are none available when you need one and a bunch available when you don't need it.

 

Check with a local welder and see if you can have one made.  Most of the cages around here have been built by local welders with some like bank vaults and others fairly simply constructed.  Just make sure you have provisions for two heavy locks on the cage door, located inside the cage where it's harder to cut them.

[dogcow]

a few options for high security w/out fabricating a cage, a lot of these come from a local guy who only does 24/7 laundries 

 

1) replace glass with lexan from home depot, they will cut it to fit, or you can cut it with a circular saw if you go real slow

 

2) take a sheet of expanded aluminum and bolt it inside the lexan (or glass) 

 

3) replace your lock with a medeco high security "shackle-less" hasp (aka puck lock)

 

4) bolt the drink and snack machines to the floor, or if not possible bolt them together to prevent theft/shaking

the weight of the drink machine is gonna prevent shaking the snack machine.

 

and heres one ive done myself 

 

you can built a "tilt switch" or theft switching using a car battery and a car horn. If you want a tilt switch to prevent shaking get a mercury switch, to built a theft switch home depot sells a kit with a remote control and a reverse switch, basically its got a magnet on one part of the

door that holds the switch on the other half of the door open, when the door is opened, the magnetic field is broken and the circuit closes 

sounding the alarm, you can use the remote to disable the alarm. It comes with a tiny little alarm, i replaced it with a car horn using a relay