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do you throw out gumballs when...


jay22

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I test all of my Dubble Bubble locations because anymore the gumballs are coming in with a harder shell. Really hard shells can be a liability and they hurt sales. Generally they are good for 9 months to 1 year then they are too hard. I am transitioning more and more to Ford gumballs because they never get hard. I will continue to move away from Dubble Bubble especially in my slower locations. The only downside to the Ford gumball is that it  is not as stable as Dubble Bubble in really hot or cold conditions.

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4 hours ago, gumball guy said:

I test all of my Dubble Bubble locations because anymore the gumballs are coming in with a harder shell. Really hard shells can be a liability and they hurt sales. Generally they are good for 9 months to 1 year then they are too hard. I am transitioning more and more to Ford gumballs because they never get hard. I will continue to move away from Dubble Bubble especially in my slower locations. The only downside to the Ford gumball is that it  is not as stable as Dubble Bubble in really hot or cold conditions.

i think your first sentence was a typo? i was always cautious about hard shells before, but with corona sales, so many locations i’ve been testing have hard shells now i’m almost to the point where i don’t want to bother replacing them. have you lost any locations due to hard gumballs? it is really annoying the shell gets hard like that, because once you get past the shell, they’re still fine.

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2 hours ago, jay22 said:

i think your first sentence was a typo? i was always cautious about hard shells before, but with corona sales, so many locations i’ve been testing have hard shells now i’m almost to the point where i don’t want to bother replacing them. have you lost any locations due to hard gumballs? it is really annoying the shell gets hard like that, because once you get past the shell, they’re still fine.

     No typo I test every location and keep track as to when product is changed out. In the last year or two (started before Covid) I noticed that Dubble Bubble was often harder than normal right out of the box. The expiration dates were always fine but some cases seemed semi stale. Sam's will take it back but I don't have time to fool with that especially when it's a reoccurring issue. So I will take my business to Ford because I can buy a pallet of their gumballs for very close to the same price these days and I am reducing the amount of gumballs that I am throwing out as stales.  It doesn't break my heart either to reduce my dependency on Sam's Club for another staple item in my business. Sam's pricing is usually the best but their lack of consistency with product availability and poor customer support is really frustrating. 

     I have indeed lost locations through the years due to hard gumballs.  The problem with hard shells is that if a customer chomps down on it they can hurt their teeth and much to my surprise there are people out there who bite them with their front teeth. I found this out about 3 years ago when a kid lost a front tooth doing just that. Hard shells are a complaint generator for me and frankly fresh always sells better. I am sticking with Ford going forward and have already moved all of my slower locations to that brand.

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10 hours ago, gumball guy said:

     No typo I test every location and keep track as to when product is changed out. In the last year or two (started before Covid) I noticed that Dubble Bubble was often harder than normal right out of the box. The expiration dates were always fine but some cases seemed semi stale. Sam's will take it back but I don't have time to fool with that especially when it's a reoccurring issue. So I will take my business to Ford because I can buy a pallet of their gumballs for very close to the same price these days and I am reducing the amount of gumballs that I am throwing out as stales.  It doesn't break my heart either to reduce my dependency on Sam's Club for another staple item in my business. Sam's pricing is usually the best but their lack of consistency with product availability and poor customer support is really frustrating. 

     I have indeed lost locations through the years due to hard gumballs.  The problem with hard shells is that if a customer chomps down on it they can hurt their teeth and much to my surprise there are people out there who bite them with their front teeth. I found this out about 3 years ago when a kid lost a front tooth doing just that. Hard shells are a complaint generator for me and frankly fresh always sells better. I am sticking with Ford going forward and have already moved all of my slower locations to that brand.

good to know. the blue cases i’ve got from sams are definitely better than the green bj’s ones(they’ve now discontinued them entirely). never had sams ones that were stale out the box though so far.  as for concord in general though, it’s unacceptable to me that concord has never addressed the purple fading issue. i’ve mentioned it to Lola many times. i’m sure many people have. how hard can it be to test out a new dye? ford gumballs never getting hard does sound intriguing but it’s just a lot more pricier for me.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I ditched dubble bubble this year and am 100% ford now too.

Sam's club is unreliable, horrible customer service, and now they're even carrying staleish gumballs right out of the box (I'm guessing they're not rotating product as effectively nowadays as they used to be in their warehouses).

Ford is more expensive, but they last forever, and they're a lot easier to get.

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  • 2 weeks later...

fords is so expensive though compared to concord. maybe for you guys if you’re buying pallets it’s worth it, but i can’t justify doing that. it would be nice though to know the gum is staying soft in the machines. does cold weather not effect fords shell? from what i’ve been noticing, and i told gumball guy this, being out in entranceways at some locations turns the gum into rocks, but they’re not stale once you chomp into it, and start chewing. wish there was such a thing as weather resistant gum lol.

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6 hours ago, jay22 said:

fords is so expensive though compared to concord. maybe for you guys if you’re buying pallets it’s worth it, but i can’t justify doing that. it would be nice though to know the gum is staying soft in the machines. does cold weather not effect fords shell? from what i’ve been noticing, and i told gumball guy this, being out in entranceways at some locations turns the gum into rocks, but they’re not stale once you chomp into it, and start chewing. wish there was such a thing as weather resistant gum lol.

Ford is not as stable as Dubble Bubble in higher temps due to the softer shell. They will malform and melt easier in extreme heat than harder shelled Dubble Bubble. I would be more apt to put Ford gumballs in a consistently cold location because they do maintain the soft texture more so than Dubble Bubble but if it gets cold enough they will freeze and begin to flake. Bottom line, gumball and candy quality suffers in fluctuating or extreme temperatures. I will try to run capsules in those types of foyers if the clientele will supports it (i.e. restaurants, retailers). 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Gumball guy is correct.  Ford gum does have temperature/humidity limitations like almost any candy.  However they are way fresher and this is the consequence of that.  DB gum has probably been sitting in a warehouse at Sams Club for months before it sees the shelf for you to buy it. 

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