I was out on routes Tuesday and Thursday this week. I now have 166 accounts and I'm adding 5 new accounts each day out. Tuesday I took off with 5 boxes for growth and along the way lost 4 accounts. Had to pick up 9 new accounts to be where I wanted to be at the end of the day.

The first snack box route I built years ago grew at a pace of 2 new accounts per week in the beginning then 2 per day later on. Growing at the pace I'm growing this time makes it seem like more are dropping off but I think it is just more noticeable because of the quicker growth.

Sales are running just shy of $20.00 per box at this time. The one area I have let down in is carding those that have to high of shortage. I'm starting to rectify that problem now before it gets out of control.

With Vistar's 50 case minimum order there has been no profits in the books at this point but in the next 1 to 2 weeks I'm anticipating my first profit. The profit is about a week late at this point in time from what I had anticipted in the beginning.

I'm a much happier person today than when I was in the corporate world and have no regrets about leaving my previous employer, they are a great company I'm just not a good employee. 

I will be ordering more boxes soon as I just opened the last case. Thanks to all of you that have sent words of encouragement it means a lot to me.

Dennis

My business is definately taking a turn for the better as time goes on. The new route is up to 28 accounts now, another route has 37 and the other 3 routes have 30 so I now have 155 accounts. I thought I had 156? I may have to count the routes when I'm getting ready to fill boxes.

This past week I was out on a route 3 times. I picked up 25 new accounts. Two of the routes I picked up 10 new accounts and the 3rd route I picked up 5 new accounts. Going forward with the routes filling out I'm going to drop down to 5 new accounts until each route hits 60.

I don't know if any of you can associate with what I'm about to say but here goes. I have worked with some great salesmen in my life but I'm not in that catagory. One morning this past week my wife and I where drinking our morning cup of coffee when I told her that at that time in the morning I'm always worried that I won't be able to make the sales goals I have set for myself.

She looked at me kinda funny and said that surprised her. I told her it was true and that doubting my sales ability has always been there for me. I deal with my doubts by making myself get out of the vehicle with a box in hand and head into that first door each day.

Once inside the presentation starts to flow from my mouth, the fear seems to end and I begin to enjoy the people I'm meeting for the first time. I have a policy to thank the ones that don't buy for listening to my presentation. If someone will listen to me I feel they have done everything that I could expect from them.

I hate the thought of being a failure and putting this on VENDiscuss has put me in the hot seat. There may come a day when I won't make my sales goal. I just want all of you to know the day after that, I will get up and do it all over again.

Dennis

Route Still Growing

It is Friday afternoon and the money has been counted from the boxes I run yesterday. The sales have been picking up on the last 2 routes I ran. Product sold was 18.50 per box and money in the box was 14.50 giving me 21% shortage.

The shortage will come down as from this point on I'm going to be carding the worst offenders. I think some of the resistance to the $1.25 price is breaking down, I was sure that it would with time.

I added 20 new acounts the last 2 days I was on routes. My total number of accounts is 131. Next week when I start running the routes that have 30 accounts on them I may start placing 5 new accounts per day instead of the 10 or more I have been placing up till now.

As the routes fill out and the accounts have been on the route for a month or two I think that sales per box are going to increase to around $23.00 to $25.00 and the money in the box will climb to $17.00 to $19.00 per cycle.

I've had a few accounts dump there snack box operator and take my box even though it is $1.25 versus theirs at $1.00. I had even more take my card as their present operator is not able to offer much chocalate because of being at $1.00.

My thought is give people what they want and charge them accordingly. You may miss some accounts when your selling but in the long run it is going to pay.

Start Up Continues To Grow

Hello,

Its Sunday afternoon and it's time to update for those that are interested. I've been out 2 times since the last update. I started a fifth route to put more time in between deliveries. The reason for the fifth route is sales are not where I want them to be.

Still getting resistance to the $1.25 price tag but I know it is the right thing to do with the price of gas and all other expences. I'm sure with time they will stop resisting the price. Every time I have raised prices there has always been a temporary dip in sales.

I will start replacing a few accounts in a few weeks if sales don't increase but I don't want to do it to quickly.

In the last two days out on the route I picked up 28 new accounts and now have 110 total accounts. Starting the fifth route I now plan on 300 accounts for this route. Ottumwa is the location of the new route and is wide open that is a welcome thing.

My Snack Box Start Up

Things have been going as planned up to this point. Last Thursday I went out with 20 boxes run the ten accounts I had and then placed 10 new accounts. Sales on an 8 work day cycle are running a little over $13.00 per box and right at 20% shortage.

I went to Muscatine Monday with 20 boxes and run the 10 established boxes and then placed 10 new accounts. My wife had taken the day off it was her birthday and I had hoped to get back early. As you might guess it was the longest day I have had since starting the route. I got done with the route and had placed the 10 new boxes about 2:30.

One of the stops I run yesterday did a decent amount of sales but the coin box was gone. This happens in this business I relate it to a board going bad in a machine. You don't want the coin box to come up missing nor do you want to buy a new board for a vending machine.

I will begin running 20 boxes tomorrow and my plan is to place 10 new accounts making my first 30 account route. By placing 10 new accounts each day I have been able to place a 50 case order every two weeks with Vistar out of Chicago.

I think at the beginning of this start up my wife may have wondered if I still had what it takes to start a new business at my age. I hope and trust that I have convinced her I still have what it takes. I have 82 boxes placed now and the goal of 240 is getting closer.
 
As Hanable on the A Team would have said it's nice when a plan comes together.

I took off Friday with 20 boxes, 10 to service the 10 existing customers and 10 for new accounts. I had 2 new accounts early. As I was running the existing accounts one told me they had changed their mind and wanted me to take my box out. They had 2 boxes from a competitor and they only charge $1.00 per item.

Now to stay even with my goals I needed to place 11 boxes. As my day progessed I had 2 of my existing accounts that where closed. I have not counted the money yet but it looks as though 2 of the 8 boxes I brought back didn't do much. The other 6 look normal to heavy use.

I do think I'm getting some resistance to the $1.25 price but still think it will pan out to be a good move.

I placed 11 new accounts but still had 2 full boxes because of missing 2 accounts and it was about 1:30pm. I decided to use the 2 boxes and went looking for more new accounts. At about 2:30 I had picked up a couple more accounts and now I have 52 accounts on my 4 routes.

I'm having a good time walking into so many businesses. Every morning at the YMCA gym there is a gentleman that comes in shortly after my wife and I get there. Until Friday I had no idea who he was. I walked into the Sterzings Potato Chips factory office and there he was. He and a freind bought the company a couple years ago.

He come over and listened to my presentation and said no he wasn't interested. We talked for a while and I passed a message on that a piano performer in Jamaica had asked me to give a freind of his that had married into the Sterzing family over 30 years ago.

It is truly a small world with many enjoyable people in it. Every day that goes by reconfirms that leaving my former employer was the right move for me.

Hello

I started 4 routes and I placed 10 accounts on each new route. The first route was started in Burlington Iowa the 2nd Ft Madison the 3rd Keokuk and the forth in Muscatine Iowa. If you look these towns up on a map they all set on the Mississippi river. Each one of these towns I'm planning on having 1 route in them.

I section a town off and work each open business. If my plan works I will have 60 accounts in each one of these towns. If your wondering why 10 accounts on 4 different routes its because it is cheaper to build your routes evenly rather than one at a time (less boxes setting in the warehouse waiting my next trip out).

A week and a day ago I turned in my resignation as the Iowa area manager for one of the larger vending companies in America. Three years before that I sold my full line vending company to my employer. 14 years of listening to customers complain and threaten to throw me out if I didn't do what they wanted was enough.

Before going into the full line vending business I was a snack box operator for 10 years. I'm back in the snack box business and enjoying setting up new accounts. My goal at this time is to have 4 routes with 60 accounts on each route.

I will run a route one day then the next day I will count the money and fill the boxes for the next days route. This will have me coming back to each account every 8 working days which allows them to eat enough product to make it worth my while. I'm charging $1.25 per item which makes me the highest price snack box operator in Eastern Iowa.

I started two of the routes this week with 10 boxes placed on each. Next week I will start 2 more routes with 10 boxes on each route. Friday I will start bringing the first boxes back with money in them. When I hit 240 accounts in a few weeks then it will be time to decide if I want to keep growing or not.

Some people think I'm crazy leaving my job with the vending company.  I've always told my wife at my funeral I want the song played I Did It My way by Frank Sinatra.

Finding Happiness In Your Work

I went into the snack box business in 1988 and was in it until 1998. Those were the happiest days of my life. And that is why I enjoy writing about it.

I’m sure many of you hear the alarm go off in the morning and just want to roll over and go back to sleep. When a person is in the snack box business they look forward to each day.

On an average day you should be servicing between 60 and 80 accounts. You can’t help but make a few friends along the way. You will find people that have the same interest as you and bingo there is an account that you look forward to seeing each time around.

You will meet some of the nicest people that run small businesses just like you. Being able to visit with others that are as proud of their business as you are of your is one of the joys of owning a snack box route.

The financial rewards of running a snack box route are what many people think about when they are contemplating going into the business. I would like to encourage you to think about the happiness reward.

Life is short and many people don’t think about the happiness reward. I have heard it said many times in my life do something you enjoy and you will never work another day in your life. That is what I hear from the people that have been in the business for a number of years.

Vic and His Wife

Vic from the southeast portion of the United States told me one day him and his wife are retired but still have a small snack box route. He said I have had these customers for years and if bad weather comes they know I may be a day behind and that is OK with them.

That is because they are his friends not just his customers. I would venture to say that if you were to talk with Vic’s accounts they would say we like the snacks Vic and his wife supply us. But they are old friends of ours and life just wouldn’t be the same without them.

If you are looking for something that is more than a job I would like to invite you to take the plunge and build a snack box route for you and your family.

The One On One

When I speak of the one on one I’m talking about talking with my employees. This is a great way to find out about problems they are having.

It is also a good way to make them feel like they are a part of a team. The one on one can solve many problems that a company may be having and should be used to get problems solved that concern employees.

 

How Often Should One On Ones Be Used

I personally think one on ones should be used every other week. Communicating with your employees gives them a feeling of value.

If a company is having problems then an owner may want to do them every week. There is no better way to solve company’s problems than to have the entire team pulling in the same direction to solve the problem.

When To Do One On Ones

I like to do one on ones after the employees get back to the warehouse on Thursday afternoon. The week is still fresh on their mind but you don’t want to wait till Friday because most employees are looking forward to starting their weekend.

Who Talks

This should be a give and take session with both of you talking. If the employee is the quiet type it may take some well-planned questions to get them involved in a conversation with you.

Discussing profits is always a good place to start. My company uses Rutherford and I get a copy on each routes performance every week. In the not so distant past my company was having problems with too many stale products.

I started talking about this problem with each employee and the stales have taken a very positive move for us. Remember to give the employee a chance to talk and you will probably hear, like in the stale case, where they are having problems. You then have the opportunity to help them solve the problem or at the very least you will know why things are the way they are.

Summary

The one on one is a very useful tool that every owner should employ. It has so many positive benefits. It opens up an employee. It helps the owner understand what the employee is up against and it builds a team atmosphere.

I know in many cases it has helped me to solve minor problems before they become a major problem. I would encourage all owners that are not using some sort of one on one to implement a program as soon as possible.

It is the simplest way I know to get employees active in helping you solve the everyday problems of your company.

Company Kitchen

Our first Company Kitchen (honor based no vending machines) in Iowa has been up and running for two weeks. We have four cameras installed so we can watch what is going on at any time we want from an office computer to a laptop in a McDonalds on their Wi-Fi.

We can also go to another site that will tell us the sales at any of our Company Kitchen locations. The system uploads new data every two hours. Sales are up at the new location by about 30 percent. The thing that fascinates me is the cold food sales.

Cold Food Sales

We are getting 25% to 50% more sales out of our cold food items and selling ten times more cold food at this location. The difference seems to be that they can open the cooler door and physically touch the item before they actually buy it.

We are selling more of the higher end items now that the Company Kitchen has been installed also.

Constraints Of A Vending Machine

As most of you already know vending machines will not sell anything larger than an LSS bag of chips. With the Company Kitchen the chips are displayed on a rack like you would find in a grocery store or a convenience store so the bag size limitation problem has been removed from the equation.

If a company wanted to sell paper or pens that is also an option now.

Paying For Merchandise

Company Kitchen has eliminated the need for cash. There are several different ways to pay at the kiosk.

1-The customer can pay with a credit card.

2-The customer can pay with a debit card.

3-The customer can pay through their Company Kitchen account that can be set up in a matter of two minutes.

Company Kitchen Account

When a customer sets up a Company Kitchen account they get their own web page. This web page opens the door for them to access all of the customer benefits that Company Kitchen provides them.

One of the benefits is that at the end of a day they can open their web page and see exactly how much money they spent at the kiosk. They can also see the nutritional value of each item they consumed that day. They can put money into their account from a credit card or a debit card.

The customer can also put money in their account at the kiosk by letting the machine know who they are which activates the bill acceptor. They can put a one, five, ten or twenty in the bill acceptor and it is put directly into their account.

Company Kitchen has eliminated paying for an item with cash and the advantage in my opinion is that people don’t think about how much they are spending. That results in sales going up.

When they sign up for the Company Kitchen account they are given a small card that when scanned takes the money from their account. The thing that most of the customers enjoy is that by having an account they can use their thumb print to pay for an item and it comes from their account funds.

How convenient, the customer comes down for a glass of water and as they walk by the coolers and the shelving they impulsively pick up a Coke, walk to the kiosk, scan the bottle of Coke, and put their thumb against the thumb print eye. You just made a sale and all they needed to buy that Coke was their thumb print.

Theft

About 1% is the norm. You don’t pay the account a commission and your cold food is being sold at a premium price. Here is something else to consider.

If you are getting $1.35 out of a 20oz bottle of soda through a vending machine and there is a deposit of 5 cents on the bottle like there is in Iowa you are actually getting $1.30. Now add sales tax and in Iowa that is 7% so now subtract another 9 cents so you are actually taking $1.21 to the bank.

With the Company Kitchen you can program it to add the sales tax and the bottle deposit. Now you are taking a $1.35 to the bank instead of $1.21 and my friend that extra .14 cents is profit in your pocket.

Summary

The honor system is coming to vending and I don’t think there is any way we can stop it. The vendor has finally figured out what the honor snack box operator has known for years.

Vending How Will It Look In Five Years

Changes in the vending industry have always seemed to move slowly. There is a new form of vending that seems to be taking hold and it is making me wonder what the vending industry will look like in another five years.

The new form of vending I’m talking about is the self serve break room. Most of us have seen the self-checkout lanes that are at many Wal-Mart stores today.

Now picture a break room where there are no traditional vending machines just a cooler for the cold food, milk and items that need to be refrigerated. Then a rack that holds the candy, chips, and pastries that would come inside a snack machine.

Most locations would have a cooler for soda, energy drinks and items you would find in a glass front soda vending machine. If the location justifies it you may have a freezer to sell frozen food.

Your customer walks along the displays and takes what ever they want and then steps up to a kiosk where they can pay with cash or a credit card. Many companies will pass out their own debit cards that you are able to replenish the money on the card.

Each employee will have their own web site to go to and at the end of a day, week, or month they can look to see exactly what they have purchased at the companies break room. It will tell them how many calories, saturated fats, and most anything that shows up on the ingredients label.

Pricing Items

Pricing of items is a major bonus with this system. Many companies are able to price their cold food at 30 to 50 percent more than they would be able to get out of it through a vending machine.

Another advantage is if you are charging $1.35 for a 20 oz bottle of soda that comes out of your vending machine that is the total amount you will receive for that item.

Now with the self serve you may price that 20 oz bottle of soda at $1.39 and then when they get to the kiosk to pay for the item the kiosk will add sales tax and the bottle deposit to the total amount that your customers pay.

Many people don’t mind paying more for a meal that they can pickup and look at before making the actual purchase. Figures are saying that sales are going up from 20% to 50% at a location after the kiosk and coolers are installed.

Theft

Theft is minimal if you watch the type of account that you are setting up with this type of a program. When you factor in being able to get more out of the same products that you sell through your vending machine this becomes a viable new tool for the vendor.

I will be writing more on this subject in the near future. I would like to hear from you on your thoughts of this type of a system.

Figuring Sales Tax (Are You Paying To Much)

When you sell an item such as snacks and sodas through a vending machine or a snack box the local sales tax has to be figured out of the money you bring in.

If you’re not careful you can be paying taxes on top of taxes. My CPA once gave me this formula to help me from paying a tax on top of a tax when I figured my sales tax.

Lets assume your weekly sales are $5000.00 and your state sales tax is 5%. You are going to take your sales times 5 (Sales Tax rate) that equals 25,000. Then you are going to take 25,000 and divide it by 105 (Sales tax rate + 100) and that equals $238.10.

Now take $5000.00 minus $238.10 that equals $4761.90 and that is your actual sales. If you took $5000.00 times 5% you would be paying $250.00 in sales tax.

Total Sales $5000.00

5000.00 x 5 (Sales Tax Rate) = 25000.00

25,000.00 / 105 (Sales Tax Rate + 100) = 238.09523 round to 238.10 (Actual tax)

$5000.00 – $238.10 = $4761.90 (Actual sales)

I hope that these two examples are clear. It is never easy to discuss numbers in an article such as we have tried to do here.

Summary

Paying taxes is something we must all do and should feel like we have done something that helps our country to continue to be a great country to live in.

On the other side of the equation, over paying taxes has never been something that I have felt compelled to do.

The equation I have given above makes it possible to be fair to yourself and to the state you live in. Use the equation above and feel good about yourself.

With the extra money in your pocket at the end of each month take your’ loving spouse out for a meal.

Spring Sale

Our first spring sale is here! This is the lowest price on white snack boxes we have ever offered. You can buy the white snack boxes as low as $67.45 per case.

Along with that all the accessories are on sale. Double Bonus - save in two ways! Buy in quantity and you recieve the quantity discount and the sale discount.

White snack box, large coin box, white snack box tray shippers, tray stands, price labels, shortage control cards-all are discounted 10%!

Here is how you recieve the discount - put everything you want in the shopping cart (must add up to $100.00 excluding shipping).

In the Promotions and Discounts box enter the word sale in the yellow block. Below the yellow box look for the button that says update cart and click it. Your 10% discount is subtracted from your items, continue to paypal to pay.

Hurry to your savings! - Sale ends March 13th at midnight.

Store Home

Healthy Snacks And Sales

Healthy snacks can be a profitable item for vending machines and let’s talk about the different ways. If they are profitable why not fill your machines with healthy items and help us overweight people eat healthier?

Here is the answer: we don’t always feel like a healthy snack. Sometimes we just plain and simply want a bag of potato chips or maybe a candy bar.

A doctors son that was the plant manager at my largest vending account once told me his fathers favorite phrase was: You can eat anything and everything in moderation.

How Does It Affect Sales

Many venders tell me that the healthy items are hurting their sales and are the cause of too many stales. I would agree with the statement that it could hurt if you are not careful on the stales side of the equation.

So how can you service the healthy snack food people without cutting into your profits? I think that most people will purchase a healthy item from time to time even if it is only one time in a month when they are feeling like they need to lose weight.

In a large facility there are always some people that are eating healthy even though that is not a large number. So, how do we take care of them and still make a profit?

Offering Healthy Snacks And Stales

If you are worried about stales and the account is not a large account that can handle a full column of snacks cut your par level down to half a column per healthy snack.

If you want to make sure your drivers know how full to fill the column take some masking tape and place it at the desired level. This way your driver knows not to go beyond that point when filling the healthy snack.

How many healthy snacks should be available in a snack machine is a question some venders ask. That really depends on the account. I think that a few items should be offered in every machine. To hold down on stales, (as major manufactures are raising the point that they want healthier employees) come up with a game plan.

The Game Plan

Use the healthy items to land more of the large accounts that are rightfully yours. Take the right or left side of your snack machine and offer the employee a choice of healthy or regular snacks in each machine.

A snack column is usually twice as wide as a candy column. So give the account from the top of the machine to the bottom of the machine on the left or right side one snack column wide filled with healthy snacks.

When you get to the candy column you will give them two columns on that side of the machine. This makes a nice look to the machine especially if you mark the healthy items with a green pusher or label.

Now you have given up 16% to 18% of your machine to healthy choices and by limiting the par levels you should be able to keep stales under control.

Summary

Take the initiative and keep healthy snacks under control. Pick up new business by being able to say your machines have a healthy blend of items. Who knows, there could come a day when healthy items are the larger selling items in your machines.

I remember when the seat belt law came in to effect, at first I resisted buckling up, but now it is just the norm. As with the seat belt law, choosing a healthy snack could also become the norm.

Price Increases

What Will A Price Increase Do?

Price increases will help improve your profit margin. It will also help absorb the wholesale increases.

Here Are The Most Common Reasons To Delay A Price Increase

You are afraid your customers will notice the increase and be angry or disappointed in you. You feel comfortable with your current level of income. You don't know how much you should raise your prices. You are not seeing your competition raising their prices. You're afraid you will just have to work harder to sell the same amount of merchandise.

Five Ways You Can Smoothly Handle Raising Your Prices

Increase your prices regularly. Slowly raising prices at regular intervals will help you keep up with inflation and may even keep you ahead of inflation. By raising your prices once a year in small increments you won't attract much attention.

Pick A Month You Will Raise Prices

So many vending companies get out of the habit of raising their prices. Then they find themselves forced to make a major price increase. A major increase draws the attention of your customers and will come as a surprise to them.
It is much better to raise your prices more frequently in smaller amounts. Raising the price of chips one year, candy the following year and pastries the year after that helps to lessen the shock of a price increase.
In the vending business your wholesale prices will slowly increase. Many times a wholesale increase will be as low as .25 cent per unit. Many vendors are lulled to sleep with such a small increase but over time they do add up.
After a few years without a price increase the vendor finds themselves without the capital to make needed improvements. Take the philosophy that the wholesaler takes and increase more regularly in smaller amounts.

Establish Quality And The Price Will Follow

Quality needs to be established before a price increase can be warranted. When I speak of quality I'm speaking of both product quality and quality customer service. In the vending business service and product quality must go hand in hand.
Quality of your service comes in the form of deliveries being made on a regular schedule. This includes the machines being kept clean, filled to the prescribed fill level and, of course, working. As the owner of a vending company you need to have a program in place that ensures the driver is doing a good job and not cutting corners.
Name Brands Sell. An example of this would be Baby Ruth and not Baby Ruth Crisp. The crisp bar does come at a lower price but with the limited amount of space a vending machine has it's not advisable to try saving a few pennies this way.
Establish quality in your service and the products you carry. By doing this you have a winning combination that is hard to beat and customers don't mind paying for.

Offer Different Sizes

You can add new sizes of product to your machines to enable an increase. If you are only handling the vend size chip add the LSS (large single serve) bags to your line up. When you add the bigger bags it is a good time to raise the price on your vend size bags. By giving your customers a choice of sizes they will respond more favorably to the small bags new price.

Serve Your Customer Better

As we talked earlier, give the customer what they want: quality products and good service. You will find the price issue just goes away. People enjoy doing business with people they like and trust. Remember, always listen to what your customers want and over deliver. They will be willing to pay for it.

Let Your Customers Know Why You Are Increasing Your Prices

There are different feelings on how to let your customers know of an increase. I tell my contact at every location in person. I then like to put a sign on the machine that reads like the statement below:

Notice

We value our customers and appreciate the patronage that you have given us over the years. However, due to manufacturer increases our suppliers have increased their prices. To help offset some of the costs we will be increasing our prices.

Thank You

ABC Vending Company

Large Vending Companies

Is it possible to enter the vending business today and compete against the large vending companies? You will not get as good of pricing as they do from the suppliers. Your machines will cost you more. So how can you compete?

Service and never forget it. The large corporations have their problems and in most cases it is giving good service. Give me your thoughts.

Vending Truck For Smaller Operators

I’m going to cover the way many smaller vending companies set their truck up. We will talk about the rack you put in the van, keeping it warm in the winter months and cool in the summer months. Let’s get started.

Smaller Account Truck

When starting out in the business as a sole proprietor we will normally be looking at accounts in the 75 to 250-employee range. You can set your truck up to be your warehouse on wheels.

Most venders in this category will use a system were they will go into the account and write an order then come back to their truck to pull the order.

By using this system when you are done you will have empty totes going back to your truck.

Safe Keeping Of Your Money

It is a wise idea to either buy a safe that can be bolted to the floor or making one. The nicest safe is a roll top truck safe you drop your money in and roll the top, your money drops into a locked compartment and the top rolls back for the next deposit.

Coolers For Chocolate And Cold Food

Transporting cold food can be accomplished by investing in a cooler that is built specifically for vendors. The Omni coolers pictured below are set up to carry all the refrigerated items you will need to become a full service vendor.

The unit is plugged in over night and it cools a large freezer plate on the inside of the unit that will keep your cold food cold the entire next day.

You can also buy chocolate coolers that have removable freezer plates. You remove the plates each night and drop them in a freezer to freeze them down then put them back in the cooler before leaving in the morning.

Building A Rack

If you are handy with wood it is not a difficult task building a rack to carry your dry goods. I always used ¼” plywood and 2 x 2’s for the frame.

By making the bottom shelves tall enough to carry a 20 oz case of pop you are able to keep the weight down low in your vehicle. The top shelf should have enough room that you can put cases of chips on it.

Pop will take up a good portion of the rack, as it is one of the most popular items you sell.

Keeping The Van Cool

I bought an AC/DC exhaust fan from an RV store and installed it on top of my van. I wired it with a toggle switch-one way it was wired into my battery on the van. Toggle it the other way and it could be plugged in at night to 110 volt with a converter that changed the 110-volt to 12 volt.

This helped with excess heat as my truck set out overnight and on the weekends.

Keeping The Van Warm In The Winter

If you live in a cold climate and the truck will be left outside you can run an electric heater to keep soda from freezing. It will keep the vans box warm over night.

If you are driving a Ford E350 van with a door going between the cab and the box you can keep the box warm enough to be comfortable while pulling an order.

Summary

The van I have just described to you is set up for the vender who goes in the account writes an order and comes back to the van to pull the order.

This system will require a two-wheeler and two or three plastic tubs to carry your product in.

Starting A Snack Box Business

Timing is everything, so they say. When it comes to starting a snack box business there is really no bad time. Snacks are an impulse item and when the boxes are placed the impulse makes your sales for you.

The winter months are a time that chocolate won’t melt. People seem to snack heavier in the winter months.  These two things make the winter months slightly better for starting a snack box business.

The slowest time of the year in the snack box business is all but over. The second week of December through the third week of January is the slowest time of the year in the snack box business.

Our mothers and wives start their baking about the second week of December and then comes the New Years resolutions. The New Years resolutions are coming to an end the third week of January.

In summary, the Christmas candy is gone the New Years diet has ended so it is the perfect time to start a snack box business.

Stale Products

Stale Product

Most all food items have an expiration date posted on the labels. Sometimes it is a julian date and sometimes it is a regular date.

There are many products that have such a long life on them that a vendor can be lulled into just assuming they are still in code. Keeping an eye on stales is a must, as most people can get rather upset over buying an item that is out of date.

It just may cost you an account if the wrong person buys or hears of the problem.

Shortest Coded Items

Cold food machines are the machines that have the shortest coded items in them. Sandwiches, salads, burritos, and meal entrees need to be checked every time you open the door.

The next shortest coded item is pastries. You will get about 10 days to 6 weeks to sell them. Pies are the shortest coded pasties I can think of at this moment.

Then come chips, crackers and cookies most of these products will have 6 to 12 weeks of life on them.

How To Dispose Of Stales

I know of no special way you are to dispose of stale product. Putting them in a dumpster is the common way. There are some companies that will take your food stales for a price and add them to a compost pile enabling you to say that you have gone green.

How To Keep Stales Under Control

If you are checking for stales every time you open the door of your machines or each time a snack box is refilled you will rarely have this problem.

If you have employees it is something you will want to train them to do or you could have a huge headache. Remember the date is the manufacturers suggested date but to your customer it may be a rigid line in the sand they refuse to cross over. When you are checking dates remember to factor in the next time you will be servicing this account.

Handling A Customer That Bought A Stale Item

In my opinion there is only one way to handle a customer that has purchased an out of date or stale item. That is to give them their money back, apologize, and let them know you are going to be taking corrective action to see that it does not happen again.

What Is An Acceptable Stale Percentage

Most vending companies think that stales should not run over 2% of the gross sales of product. If you are a snack box operator that % will run a little higher.

Summary

I don’t believe it is ever worth it to leave a stale in any machine or snack box. You must factor in the next time you will service the account and remove product that will become stale before you return.

I would like you to think of stales like this. They are a part of our business, they need to be controlled and you will never eliminate all of them. Is it worth losing an account that is putting $20,000.00 per year into your yearly income?

That could be the consequence for leaving a stale item in one more day.

Card Readers And Institutions.

Recently the credit card companies raised the price to vendor's with card readers. Can someone help me with which side of the business got hit? Was it the debit card or the credit card transactions?

Today I would like to talk a bit about closed loop card readers. Some colleges, prisons and other locations have set up, what I call, closed loop card readers (we will use prisons going forward in this article).

The way it works is a machine is set up that sells a card to a new customer and at the same time puts some credit on the card for the purchaser. The machine is close to the same size as a bill changer and works in a similar manner. A new customer puts in a $20.00 bill into a bill acceptor and normally $18.00 credit is put on the card. The other two dollars is a one time fee charged for the card.

When the card gets low on credit, the customer returns to the same machine. They put their card into the card slot and deposit a $20.00 bill, and the card is credited with $20.00.

The card machines money is collected daily by the prison and deposited into the prisons account. The machines in a prison are set up with only card readers so that cash does not work in them.

As a customer spends money in the machine it keeps track of how much money has been spent. Usually once per week the vendor will use a handheld device to download the sales information. It is then processed back at the office and a statement is sent to the prison for payment.

These readers keep track of a lot of information. Lets say that one of the inmates claims a machine took advantage of them. You, the vendor, can go back and check to see if that inmate even made a transaction at the time they are claiming the machine took advantage of them. Many machines will give them the credit back if they do not receive their product and you the vendor can check your records to see if it did.

Can you see where a card reader could help you gain business? 

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