AZquickvend Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I now have 2 cold food machines placed and I'm less than impressed with the sales. Both accounts asked for these machines and they are solid accounts so I obliged but I'm struggling with expired food and low sales. Is anyone having luck with these? What are your best sellers? Currently I have hot pockets, burritos, pizzas, ramen, red bull, juices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CajunCandy Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 Aghhh! I feel your pain! Try from Vista Big Azz poyboys bbq rib, and their Big Azz cheese burgers. I wound up pulling my cold food machine due to lay offs. cajun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 I now have 2 cold food machines placed and I'm less than impressed with the sales. Both accounts asked for these machines and they are solid accounts so I obliged but I'm struggling with expired food and low sales. Is anyone having luck with these? What are your best sellers? Currently I have hot pockets, burritos, pizzas, ramen, red bull, juices. A lot of vendors consider these machines to be break even (hopefully) perks for their best accounts, just part of doing business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Use shelf stable items like microwavable meals and Lunchbuckets/Dinty Moore, fruit cups, juices, muffins, bagels, etc. Cold food is always a loss-leader so you have to do the best you can with it. You can also alternate your shelves so that every other one has something in it in a checkerboard pattern. That tends to look more full. Frozen sandwiches will also give you a good shelf life so you can do those instead of any fresh sandwiches you might be doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparta_Automation Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I have a National 431 cold food machine and this is what I have in each row 1 - Mac and Cheese Bowls (Shelf Stable) 2 - Yogurt 3 - Velvetta Meals (Shelf Stable) 4 - Lunchables 5 - Cereal Bowl and a little carton of Milk 6 - Complete Meals (Shelf Stable) 7 - Fruit Jars (Shelf Stable) 8 - Fresh Apples (Pretty Much Shelf Stable) 9 - Cup-o-soup (shelf Stable) Notice....almost everything is shelf stable. I don't lose money on the machine, however I clear maybe $30/month in profit. If I have to fix the machine, I have lost all profits for many/many months. I have tried salads, sandwiches, combo deals and other food items without much success If I had to do it all over again, I would not do fresh food machines. Travis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I have a National 431 cold food machine and this is what I have in each row 1 - Mac and Cheese Bowls (Shelf Stable) 2 - Yogurt 3 - Velvetta Meals (Shelf Stable) 4 - Lunchables 5 - Cereal Bowl and a little carton of Milk 6 - Complete Meals (Shelf Stable) 7 - Fruit Jars (Shelf Stable) 8 - Fresh Apples (Pretty Much Shelf Stable) 9 - Cup-o-soup (shelf Stable) Notice....almost everything is shelf stable. I don't lose money on the machine, however I clear maybe $30/month in profit. If I have to fix the machine, I have lost all profits for many/many months. I have tried salads, sandwiches, combo deals and other food items without much success If I had to do it all over again, I would not do fresh food machines. Travis Dang Travis - that sounds like a lot of effort to make 30 bucks a month if you're lucky. I hope that account cranks on the sodas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Yeah I can't provide much input to this. I have purposely avoided fresh food in my business. Yes, I have to go after smaller accounts that don't demand food machines and that means that I work a little harder to make money on my smaller accounts but that's just how it is sometimes. My local market used to be a major industrial center so it is heavily saturated with vending companies and vending machines. I simply leave fresh food up to the big boys. If I ever found an account between $200-$250/week without demanding a food or coffee machine, I would definitely provide them with new or like-new equipment. I would much rather keep them happy with basic snack/soda service than have to fool around with food machines. And I don't mind having a cold-food machine if it's a newer model such as a refrigerated snack machine, but I would rather avoid it altogether. The size I would need to be just to be able to go through food... it just doesn't seem worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allprovending Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Glad this post came up because I just bought 20 machines, most DN, but 2 are cold foods and 1 is coffee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZquickvend Posted August 9, 2015 Author Share Posted August 9, 2015 I will have to switch to more food with a much longer shelf life. It wouldn't be so bad if the sodas were still selling as fast as they were. This account asked us to switch to bottles and put in a cold food machine. Sales have tanked. How much do you all sell bottled soda for? We are priced at $1.50 for 16.9 oz. it's only been 2 weeks but I expected much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allprovending Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I think 1.50 is high for 16.9 oz. that's what I sell 20 Oz. for and some locations I sell 20 Oz. for 1.25 which I hate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I will have to switch to more food with a much longer shelf life. It wouldn't be so bad if the sodas were still selling as fast as they were. This account asked us to switch to bottles and put in a cold food machine. Sales have tanked. How much do you all sell bottled soda for? We are priced at $1.50 for 16.9 oz. it's only been 2 weeks but I expected much more. I don't really think the market is up to 1.50 on 16.9 oz bottles yet. This is because we aren't really at the 1.75 20 oz bottle yet - unless in a public location. While I will tell you "more power to you" at those prices and that I hope you can sustain them, I wouldn't be surprised if those prices come with a high commission. In addition, if your snack sales haven't also dropped then you know any soda sales drop is directly related to the price. If the drop is across the board then it could simply be a seasonal thing that you weren't aware of if this account is fairly new to you or unless there has been a significant change at the location. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walta Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 The worst thing I ever saw in a food machine was plastic flowers. But the machine did not look empty . I see a lot of chocolate bars, juice, soda and energy drinks. Walta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparta_Automation Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Moondog: Yep, I also have two soda, 2 snacks and a frozen food machine in this location,,,,and about 16 other machines (snack and sodas) in their other buildings. This is a large account for me. They wanted fresh food....so I gave it to them. However for almost any other place, nope, I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. In response to the 16.9 oz bottles. We are almost strictly a can vendor for sodas. We have a selection of diet coke and coke for the 16.9 oz bottles and sell them for $1.50. Cans are 85 cents. Travis Travis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelermj Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 My top 10 cold food items are: String Cheese Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate Chocolate chip muffin Lunchable Ham & Swiss Otis Spunkmeyer Blueberry Muffin Lunchable Turkey & Cheddar Landshire Ham & Cheese Wedge Landshire Turkey & Cheese Wedge Apples Yogurt Cloverhill Texas Cinnamon Roll Landshire Chicken Salad Wedge Location and the quantity of cold machines is definitely a factor. If you only have 1 or 2 cold food machines, then your spoilage is obviously going to be greater than if you have 10. I think the must have in any cold food machine would be string cheese, I sell more string cheese than Snickers bars or peanut M&M's. I pay $.16 for each string cheese and sell them for $.50, but I have seen others that will sell two at a time for $1 also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Most vendors use a rule of thumb of 150 employees and up for a food. Also almost all of my vendors put in Frozen Units when possible to save on stale date. There is a big joke in my area that one of the largest companies only has a couple of food machines. They put a clause in their contracts "if the food machine does not meet our min. requirements in 3 months we will regrettably have to remove it." If you have an old Rowe you can put in some hard to load self stable and odd size drinks. Good Luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKK Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 I have purposely strayed away from cold food machines. Ive heard nothing but bad plus keeping inventory and stales is a no go. I have gotten locations who had cold food/ice cream/ cofee and i still am able to get them without placing one in there. I will never do one. Although i think we should work w some locations if u know how to talk to them u can definately avoid it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boblib Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Im new here but not to the industry. Currently have 1 cold food vendor placed in our largest account that employes about 300. What I've found that works best for me are any of the Pierre Big Az products followed by the Pierre Pizza Parlor French Bread Pizza. Also just introduced the Landshire Big Daddy Roast Beef sandwiches and Im getting good sales with those. This along with Hot Pockets and Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches are pretty much the staple of my machine. I'll rotate strombolis, calzones, Philly cheesesteaks, Tonys Pizza to fill in. As far as fresh sandwiches go, I used a local sandwich shop for a while but the cost was so high that I couldn't sell them at a reasonable enough price. Currently having some success with the Fast Choice wedge sandwiches. Salads are a complete waste of time. Just picked up Cinnabons Gooey Bites and plan on placing those tomorrow. Hoping these don't sell so that I'll be forced to eat them myself What I've learned is that I keep my margins low and keep the stuff moving. I originally priced everything much higher but have cut my prices to reflect a $.40-$.50 markup over cost. In all the machine averages about $125/week in sales of which I make probably 20-25%, so $25-$30. And Im happy with that. This machine is our only active food machine and we currently have 3 frozen machines in storage that were all out but have been pulled due to loss of account or poor sales. The account is currently bugging me for ice cream but Im trying to hold them off until next summer (Im in Pa). From my experience ice cream in the summer = big sales and margins. Overall I do agree with the consensus here that food in just a giant PIA and I'd rather not do it. Our business is generations old and we've always resisted it and even lost accounts because of it (or lack of doing it). It wasn't until about 10 years ago that we decided to give it a try starting with the frozen stuff. It has landed us accounts and allowed us to retain better accounts, so it is worth it. Looking ahead we've landed a startup manufacturing plant that, if everything goes according to plan, will employ 175 by the end of 2016. They've already begun asking for food and if they hit their projections I will have to oblige or lose the account. Also we have a fractionation plant of a large gas company (Im smack in the middle of Marcellus Country) that has begun tossing around the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tdow3 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I have a Rowe in a trucking company. Bottom 2 rows are water and monster drinks. Set at $1 and $2.50 among w milk and Gatorade for $2. My best are pizzas, big burritos, and jalapeño burgers. I also do a meal for $6. I put a burrito, rice bowl(Walmart for $1) and a coke. A $3.75 profit. They sell good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJT Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Cold food will always be a struggle for about any size vendor. The other issue is no matter what my top seller are does not mean they will do well at your accounts. The key is acount selection. Even with proper account selection it is a struggle to make profit or hopefully break even If you are having to only put mostly long shelf life items like muffins, lunch buckets, string cheese, etc to keep from loosing product they do not deserve a cold food machine. The other issue is some accounts require cold food to get their business. Large manufacturing is like that. Like someone mentioned if cold food is requested be sure to require a minimum revenue it must produce in order to keep it in place. If a cold food machine does not do $100 a week I would not keep it in place. A combo frozen fresh machine is a lot easier to manage in many accounts over a straight cold food. I have an account right now that has a combo frozen cold food that does $100 week average and the cold food portion is still a struggle. If it didn't do the $100 average I would pull it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJT Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 I have purposely strayed away from cold food machines. Ive heard nothing but bad plus keeping inventory and stales is a no go. I have gotten locations who had cold food/ice cream/ cofee and i still am able to get them without placing one in there. I will never do one. Although i think we should work w some locations if u know how to talk to them u can definately avoid it. What kind of accounts that had cold food/ice cream and coffee and you where able to take them to a drink snack only? Type of accounts and employee count? Also can you explain how you "talk to them" to get them to see not doing it? In all my years of vending I have never seen this happen but a handful of times and that was when someone put in a cold food in an account that only deserved a drink snack. I have put in cold food as a "try it" situation but had to remove it later because of poor sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vendbend Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 I have a cold food machine with a broken refrig unit but I named it rummage sale and use it for anything and everything I want to get rid of people like the novelty and the bargain part of it. also when I get down to drinks that dont sell well and there are a random few left of various flavors I tag 1 slot on the drink machine with a label that says "mystery drink" and price the same amount as others and people buy it I think they like the surprise so my advice is be creative to get rid of stuff it has worked well for me I was really surprised by how well the mystery drinks sell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJT Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 I have a cold food machine with a broken refrig unit but I named it rummage sale and use it for anything and everything I want to get rid of people like the novelty and the bargain part of it. also when I get down to drinks that dont sell well and there are a random few left of various flavors I tag 1 slot on the drink machine with a label that says "mystery drink" and price the same amount as others and people buy it I think they like the surprise so my advice is be creative to get rid of stuff it has worked well for me I was really surprised by how well the mystery drinks sell I am not sure I follow exactly what you have here. You have a non working food machine (broken refrig?) that you are putting random items in that are slow sellers? I am sorry but if that is the case it does not sound very professional at all. You might have had some success with this but I would not recommend do this. As far as being "creative" operators need to learn what sells and what doesn't and manage their inventory correctly. Running close dated stuff at a discount is not really the answer. I have run one column in a snack machine before at a discount as a "weekly special" to move some slow sellers but have since discontinued its use. If you are having drinks get that short dated you need to take a serious look in other areas of your operation to fix the problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feral Vending Mechanic Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I'm a Technician, but for a while at one of my jobs, I was put in charge of five cold food machines. ( In addition to my normal duties. ) During that year, I made some observations about cold food machines. 1 ) Pay very close attention to what is selling. Add a little bit more of those things you run out of first. 2 ) But don't put in too many of those things. People will stop buying them. 3 ) Ask people what they want to see in the machine. But know that they're lying to you. Add a few of those things, but don't go overboard. 4 ) Change is good. Mix things up once in a while. 5 ) Fundamentally, what it really comes down to is that no one really wants to eat a three week old sandwich. Your cold food machine will end up being a fancy juice machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allen watson Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I sell the following Costco items: jimmy Dean croissant egg and sausage. Ham and cheese hot pockets. Chicken Bakes (best seller) Cheese Burgers Philly Steak and Cheese Sandwich Greek Yogurt with fruit at the bottom Large and small cup of soups. The large are the hot and spicey ones. I also sell the salads from Food 4 Less or WinCo. Lately my cold food has been selling very well and I might even be breaking even. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buyer214 Posted September 19, 2015 Share Posted September 19, 2015 I'm a Technician, but for a while at one of my jobs, I was put in charge of five cold food machines. ( In addition to my normal duties. ) During that year, I made some observations about cold food machines. 1 ) Pay very close attention to what is selling. Add a little bit more of those things you run out of first. 2 ) But don't put in too many of those things. People will stop buying them. 3 ) Ask people what they want to see in the machine. But know that they're lying to you. Add a few of those things, but don't go overboard. 4 ) Change is good. Mix things up once in a while. 5 ) Fundamentally, what it really comes down to is that no one really wants to eat a three week old sandwich. Your cold food machine will end up being a fancy juice machine. Haha amen! We have a few of those 9000$ juice/red rave/muffin machines out there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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