Idea to boost profits greatly in the honor box business

[thevendingbutler]

I don't know if any of you have thought about this idea for greatly boosting your profits in the honor box business, but have any of you ever thought of going to a wholesale dealer and buying a lot of your products in mass bulk (like generic M&M's, chocolate covered peanuts and raisins, yogurt covered pretzels, etc) and then prepackaging the items yourself to sell in your honor boxes? I'm thinking about doing this myself but I don't know yet what I would use to prepackage the food items with. I might also (unless there's legality issues involved) put my company logo on the bag somehow. I would imagine that even during a real bad economy you could still maintain a pretty high profit margin. What do you all think about this idea and does anyone know what kind of equipment I would need exactly and where I could buy it?

[andyinchville]

HI,

I'm not sure of the legality of packaging food but I know the local mailing store has a bulk machine and they fill 2" capsules w/ MM and another machine with Skittles...They vend for 50 cents....I don't see why the same thing couldn;t be done on an honor box system-

Andrew

[sherlock]

Not a bad idea.

One thing to consider: Your local health dept may need to get involved if you are "packaging food".

Prepackaged items are not a big concern for them.

But, all that changes when you start packaging product for resale.

[lakevending]

As per the previous comments, the health department would be involved. I believe that you would have to have a space set aside specifically for food repackaging. If you really want to got into all that, then you can look for packaging equipment thru U-Line.

[sherlock]

Oh....and don't forget the federally required labeling.

For example: ingredients, size/weight, possible allergic reaction items (especially if you do peanuts), etc

There's a reason why some of the snack size goodies have "Not for Resale" on the packaging.

The gov't has strict guidelines on what you would have to put on your labels in order to be legal.

[mission vending]

There is NO WAY I would ever consider this. WAAAY too much risk from a liability perspective and too few dollars on the reward side to make taking the risk justifiable.

[dogcow]

too much hassle. you need to get a cert from the health department and do all prep work

in a commissary,which means paying a commissary fee. same as running a hotdog cart or food truck. trust me you make plenty of money with honor boxes my average COGS is 12% , just mix in more low cost stuff (chips /crackers) if you arent making the margins you want.

[RJT]

I agree its a bad idea because of the liability and issues with a commissary. You also would need a GL insurance poilcy that also had product liability that would be another cost.

Stick with what sells like Snickers,chips, crackers, etc and concentrate on good solid accounts.