CajunCandy Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 looking into venturing into frozen food sandwiches. Once it goes into a cold food machine, what is the life of sandwich in machine or days before it has to be pulled? Frozen sandwiches from Sam's. cajun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfdogs Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 There is usually a 'use by date' on the package. Sometimes 6-8 months from purchase date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Look at Mike, getting into it big time now! Back in the day when I ran my cold food machines and bought frozen sandwiches there were varied thawed shelf lives. Bridgeport was 21 days and Pierre was 14 days for example. I was always doubtful of the 21 day life and played it safe at 14 days for all making it much easier to remember. 14 days worked well for Hot Pockets and packaged burritos and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins were 30 days because they are a shelf stable item. When you stock any item that has a shelf life and no expiration date on it, such as anything frozen, you have to put a pull-by date on it with a sticker or, as I did, use a pen and put a number representing the calendar day 14 days in the future that the item must be removed by. We also used fresh foods as well so we had dates at 7 days, 10 days, 14 days and 30 days just to make it interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chard Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Call the manufacturer for expiration dates. It varies substantiality on the products sold at Sam's. Frozen foods have about a 6 month life span. Cold food is from one to two weeks unless you purchase commercially available cold food items which often have 30 day refrigerated serving times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Look at Mike, getting into it big time now! Back in the day when I ran my cold food machines and bought frozen sandwiches there were varied thawed shelf lives. Bridgeport was 21 days and Pierre was 14 days for example. I was always doubtful of the 21 day life and played it safe at 14 days for all making it much easier to remember. 14 days worked well for Hot Pockets and packaged burritos and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins were 30 days because they are a shelf stable item. When you stock any item that has a shelf life and no expiration date on it, such as anything frozen, you have to put a pull-by date on it with a sticker or, as I did, use a pen and put a number representing the calendar day 14 days in the future that the item must be removed by. We also used fresh foods as well so we had dates at 7 days, 10 days, 14 days and 30 days just to make it interesting. Don't forget that where Cajun lives, they put a high value on "road kill" - I doubt he'll be too worried about shelf life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CajunCandy Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 Thanks everybody! Some thing new in life! After working for the man! Now I'm the man! lol! I have to thank rmorris1953, with out his help, I wouldn't be where I'm at on this vending stuff! AZvendor plays a big part of this to! As for road kill, I don't care how good it is vacuum sealed, it leaves a smell. I will start with Sam's first, then order Big Azz from vista. cajun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc vending Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 I am on fence as to whether one of my locations should have a food machine. The new site has 250 people I don't see a machine their making money with frozen food. Advice would be welcome? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 The general rule of thumb is that a food machine will not make you money. I believe that anyone's goal with food, whether fresh or frozen, should be to break-even at best. The primary reason why there are still food machines out there are probably for one of these two reasons: 1) The location is a huge blue-collar location that will sell a LOT of food and you WILL make money off of the food. or... 2) The location is a decent-size location and you have to provide a food machine to match your competitor's offering to your location. I would NEVER put a food machine in a location that grosses less than $100/week. Once you get into $200/week and up, it because a question of... how likely are you to lose the account and how profitable is it? Once you get into the $500/week (and higher) range, then a food machine could possibly provide some extra profits. The biggest vending machine bank that I ever serviced (as an employee) was a distribution facility that had 2000-3000 people on-site each day during the holidays. This location had about 4 soda machines, 2 food machines, 1 coffee machine, and 2 snack machines all in the break room and had to be restocked at LEAST twice each day because the pop and snack machines would be bone dry after either lunch break (breaks were around 9am and 9pm). This account also had an auxiliary bank of machines behind this break area during the holidays with about 4 machines. It also had a bank of 1 food, 1 coffee, 1 pop and 1 snack in the back of the building as well in a separate break room. I believe the food machine had to be restocked every other day and there was no issue with stuff going out of date.... but holy crap... the snack machines were USI Mercato 7000's or whatever they are called with about 47 selections (7 trays!) and these people emptied BOTH snack machines TWICE each day... but the food machine could last 2 days even with far less overall capacity. This account made money with food.. with HUNDREDS if not a few THOUSAND people on site. That should explain food machine profitability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CajunCandy Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 Thanks AngryChris! Very good explanation. cajun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feral Vending Mechanic Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 The place I was working in San Diego had Cold Food figured out, too. They had a huge Work Release facility, with four Cold Food machines in it. ( And other machines, too, naturally. ) All of the almost out of date food from every other account was pulled back to the shop, and stocked in the Work Release facility on Friday. And the weekend route returned on Saturday to top it off. They had almost zero Cold Food waste because of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris1953 Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 The place I was working in San Diego had Cold Food figured out, too. They had a huge Work Release facility, with four Cold Food machines in it. ( And other machines, too, naturally. ) All of the almost out of date food from every other account was pulled back to the shop, and stocked in the Work Release facility on Friday. And the weekend route returned on Saturday to top it off. They had almost zero Cold Food waste because of that. Sounds like a excellent place for a micro-market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 I am on fence as to whether one of my locations should have a food machine. The new site has 250 people I don't see a machine their making money with frozen food. Advice would be welcome? The two great things about frozen food machines is that you don't have stale food and that you can also vend ice cream. Look at it from that perspective and then see if it makes more sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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