Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Concessions Alternatives

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Posted by Ryan Navaroli (Member # 3477) on 02-09-2009, 10:54 PM:

Related to my previous post we are getting ready to open 3 new digital 3D screens. We would like to shake up our concessions some to hopefully improve our percap on an increasing number of patrons (fingers crossed).

Here is what we have.
Popcorn - sm 46oz 2.75, md 85oz 3.50, lg 130oz 4.25 - no refills
Soda - sm 16oz 2.25, md 22oz 2.75, lg 32oz 3.25
variety of candy 2.25-3.00
nachos w/cheese 3.75 add chili, jalepneos, xtra cheese .50
cotton candy made in house - 3.25
slushies - 2 sizes 2.75, 3.25
kids pack - 3.50
crappy coffee that is neglected and mostly for us - 2

[popcorn topper area with self serve butter and 12 kernal seasons toppings (people really like these)]

We are a college town with a population of 20,000 + 20,000 students and serve a slightly larger area and hopefully much larger with our upcoming 3D.

The single item we are mostly thinking about right now is Gourmet Pretzels. Singular packaged ones. From what I understand its about $150 for the warmer and about a buck per product. We'd probably sell for around the price of the nachos with cheese side and others.

How have pretzels done for you all?

Ice cream is another thing I have tried to push for. You can usually get the freezer for free so its just product to worry about. Obviously it seems this would do best in summer months.

Anyone have thoughts on various ice cream products?

Does anyone sell energy drinks?

Beef Jerky and Trail Mix are other things that have been thrown out.

I think we are trying to stay away from hot dogs etc because it is a different food operating license.

Also for context our only competing theater sells popcorn, candy, drinks, and hot dogs for $1 and has $4 tickets. They dropped prices crazy to compete with us. I don't know how they make money.

This is a little all over the place so my apologies, we are just looking at shaking things up.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-09-2009, 11:28 PM:

No matter what you do, your majority of sales will probably always come from the Big 3: Popcorn, soda, candy. So don't put TOO much effort into shaking things up unless your new idea is easy to prepare and very profitable. (Have you looked at Gold Medal's "funfoods" catalog?)

You don't show Bottled Water on your list. That is an amazingly good seller. We have cherry and unflavored. I would say sales of the unflavored are about 20/1 over the cherry, at least. You can get a no-name bottled water and make crazy amounts of profit on it.

We sell energy drinks (16oz cans) - they do quite well.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-09-2009, 11:49 PM:

Bavarian Brothers soft pretzels are a pretty good seller at our theatre. The cost is about $1.00 each and we sell them for $3.50. The company will provide you with a steamer and dressing trays. Since we have a BIB nacho cheese dispenser, we also sell a cheese cup for 50¢. On a busy day we'll sell 40-50 pretzels.

With a market of about 40,000, I would guess that your busiest rushes are in the ballpark of 300-400 people. Typically we'll sell 10-20 pretzels for that size rush.

The other plus is they can be microwaved to order in about 75 seconds and the quality is still pretty good.

Posted by Ryan Navaroli (Member # 3477) on 02-10-2009, 05:00 AM:

Mike - We do have bottle water. $2.25 a bottle. It amazes me how it sells. I feel kind of guilty when a family gets 4 of them.

The energy drinks, juices, iced teas and other soda alternatives have always interested me. You can't beat that mark up on the fountain soda so its very hard to try and see what would add new business and not just substitute others.

Right now we have been looking at Gold Medal pretzels but will look into Bavarian Brothers.

Our Friday Saturday busy round is usually between 600-800. With matinees from 200-400ish. Weekdays we are open 3 rounds and don't usually do more than 100 for the 7. One concern we had with the pretzels was having enough stock on hand / vs having to throw them away. Also, the concern of if we introduce them its kind of hard to take them away and anger people.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 02-10-2009, 05:30 AM:

Is there such a thing as Choc Bombs (Large staff-made ice cream cones dipped in chocolate) in the States, or has my whole world just been shattered?

These things are an institution of Aussie, and I assumed the international cinema experience, not to mention phenomenal sellers with a huge markup potential.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 02-10-2009, 07:19 AM:

Ryan, you say you have a college crowd? Your crazy to not be selling some sort of energy drink. Monster and Rockstar is something you really need to look into. We sell Rockstar and they do awsome. Do you offer refills on your soda? If your looking for something to help up your percap, you could offer refills on your large for say .50 cents. If you don't offer refills now they customer will think thats a great deal for the large. Plus your going to add roughly .45 cents per refill of profit. The pretzels is a great item, Bavarian Brothers is what we carry and we take the plain pretzel and offer Salted, Cinnamon, Garlic, and plain. As well as the option to buy cheese.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-10-2009, 09:35 AM:

quote: Ryan Navaroli
The energy drinks, juices, iced teas and other soda alternatives have always interested me. You can't beat that mark up on the fountain soda so its very hard to try and see what would add new business and not just substitute others.

That is true. The main reason we decided to add the energy drinks is, the kids were sneaking them in. We sell quite a few of them but they're not blockbusters by any means -- and of course there is a new one every five minutes so you have to stay on top of the trend. Our concession kids keep us pretty well abreast of what's "hot."

Posted by Poon Limpapun (Member # 4551) on 02-10-2009, 11:59 AM:

Pretzels and Churros are a great addition to the Concession and we get them from Gold Medal Products.

However, what we do locally here in Thailand is that we have a number of different flavours for our corns and they are Regular Butter, Caramel, BBQ, Cheese, Corn Cheese, Sour Cream & Onion, Olive Oil & Organic Corn (Premium $$), Strawberry, Coconut, Tropical Fruit et al. We also have a number of flavours on rotation.

What we have been doing so far is trying to create Healthy Menu options on our Concession as our crowd tends to be health conscious these days and our Olive Oil Organic selection tends to be really popular. We also have Fresh Fruits, Light Yoghurt, Biscuits and Low Fat Ice Cream on offer and they are really making lots of Cash.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-10-2009, 12:20 PM:

Kernel's Seasonings sells mini shakers for 75¢ which are labeled for $1.50 resale. It's a good alternative to offering the free shakers. They will send you the POP materials. I believe they are currently offering White Cheddar (our best seller), Nacho, and Kettle Corn. We don't sell a ton of these, but for the cost it's something easy to add.

For what it's worth, we tried the free shakers for about 12 months based on their claim that it would increase popcorn sales by 3%. When we tracked our sales over those 12 months, the number sold of each size per 100 customers was completely flat - in other words no change. We didn't even see a decrease in the amount of butter topping we were using. Needless to say, it was difficult to justify spending $1000 a year for something that didn't add sales.

Posted by Poon Limpapun (Member # 4551) on 02-10-2009, 03:26 PM:

We are in the process of adding Waffles and Sandwiches into our Concession Menu this Thursday. Will keep you guys updated

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 02-10-2009, 06:59 PM:

Here's a quick solution...Raise your prices.

You're a good two bucks cheaper on popcorn and soda across the board compared to the craptacular dumps around here.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-10-2009, 11:02 PM:

quote: Poon Limpapun
However, what we do locally here in Thailand is that we have a number of different flavours for our corns and they are Regular Butter, Caramel, BBQ, Cheese, Corn Cheese, Sour Cream & Onion, Olive Oil & Organic Corn (Premium $$), Strawberry, Coconut, Tropical Fruit et al. We also have a number of flavours on rotation.

I can't believe that other theaters in the USA don't do that... It's so simple to do. I love Carmel Corn and Cracker Jack! I have but one customer out of hindreds that does this... and he has but three flavors...

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-11-2009, 12:25 AM:

quote:
Kernel's Seasonings sells mini shakers for 75¢...

We just started doing this mini shaker seasoning to our conc sales. Funny is that Wally-World sells the same stuff. But, it looks like you can use this seasoning for practically everything else you want to flavour.

We've been doing this Caramel Corn as well - took a while to take off but not doing too bad with this stuff. But this caramel corn has its customer base in certain markets..

-Monte

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 02-12-2009, 04:40 PM:

Has anyone tried bagged peanuts or mixed nuts? How did they do in comparison?

Posted by Poon Limpapun (Member # 4551) on 02-12-2009, 06:09 PM:

We did have Bagged Peanuts and assorted nuts a while back and they were issues with audience members having Nuts allergy so we cancelled the product and the other reason is that the sales figures are just terrible. The sales mix for this product was like 0.9% and most of it ended up in the bin.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-12-2009, 09:53 PM:

I find it odd that selling nuts was gotten rid of because of nut allergies. So a lot of people bought nuts AND forgot that they were allergic to them?

I mean, like I understand that allergies are hard to deal with (I'm allergic to dairy so I have to be careful with groceries). But I'm certainly not gonna complain to Whole Foods if I decided to buy some milk.

edit: Come to think of it, since nut allergies tend to be really powerful ones you probably had to get rid of them simply because the allergic people breathed the stuff in (and unlike an open-air place like a baseball stadium, the air is a bit more recirculated).

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 02-13-2009, 05:48 AM:

We tried peanuts in bags and I think they lasted two months before we stoped with them. We still have some that we just cant sell.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-13-2009, 11:55 AM:

The main reason I wouldn't want to sell nuts or seeds is because the shells wind up all over the floor - often covered in the person's saliva. To that end, I always feel like shooting those people who smuggle in a bag of sunflower seeds and leave a pile of shells on the floor.

As an aside, I love the sound of pistachio shells being swept across the floor.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-13-2009, 12:10 PM:

..dang, sounds like people DEFINITELY do live in pig stys and not admit it...

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-13-2009, 03:59 PM:

Along with other suggestions, I'm curious to know if any theatres have had luck selling "healthy" snack food options.

We tried sugar free candy and we could hardly give it away. Even Welch's fruit snacks are not a great seller.

We sell a variety of diet sodas and the majority still want the regular diet. We've had some success with caffeine free Diet Coke and Sprite Zero, but Coke Zero doesn't sell and many don't like the Minute Maid Light Lemonade.

Every now and then we get someone asking for milk or fresh fruit, but we just don't do the volume to keep a fresh product.

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 02-13-2009, 10:51 PM:

I would reiterate what Mike said above about a 'big 3'. I would try to sort out selling hot dogs as well as they make up the 'big 4' in my view. The only reason to diversify from these products would be if you are playing to an older or art-house crowd. Pretzels sound good though.

As for ice creams Haagen-Dazs and Ben and Jerrys look and taste good, and have strong branding. We sell the former in small freezers on the back of the stand and the latter has its own 'scoop shop', which is where I spend an unhealthy amount of my working week.

We just started selling Red Bull but it is three times the price of outside, so will never do that well. I would go for Relentless or Rockstar as the cans are bigger.

The nuts never sell that well. Neither does healthy food. People come to the cinema to escape and that includes from being healthy.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-14-2009, 01:34 AM:

Course, the real big thing with all of wanting conc alternatives is: how much of this stuff gonna increase my profit margin in the long run?

You bring in Caff Free Diet soda and you're gonna wonder how long that one 5gal BIB is gonna stay on the rack before it expires..and we all know that BIB soda prices have really shot through the roof.

You bring in some obscure product that your profit margin is so low from the sales and you wonder why you spent the dough to get it in the first place - let along trying to hopefully to sell it while it's fresh and before the freshness expiry date.

But, you bring in pickles, buy the 5gal pail of them things and sell them for 75 cents along with having kid shows, that pail of pickles will be gone in a heartbeat...and you got a stack of HDPE pails that you could sell on the side which in themselves are quite valuable for food storage and household usages...or just toss them into recycle being coded with the "2" triangle.

Pretzels, microwave hot/corn dogs, burritos, chimis, and the staple nachos have always been great alternative conc items.

You bring in every Tom, Dick and Harry's product and you got some inventory to keep a track of along in trying to push it out the door.

..and don't stock up on the candy being that's only 11% of your conc profit. Keep a mininum variety, but don't go all apenuts in bringing every sort of sweet item for it goes back to storage and freshness. BUT, you'd better to RedVines, Milk Duds and Jr.Mints well stocked at all times.

If you're gonna test market a product and it goes well, better keep it as a steady item, for it's not fun to 'tease' the patrons with a product that the most of them like and the pull it off the menuboards (like McD's love to do with their McRibs-wonderful sandwiches, but why do they do a limited run on those things..???)

-Monte

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-14-2009, 03:24 AM:

Here's the sales mix on our soda flavors.

Coke 29%
Diet Coke 19%
Sprite 13%
Pibb Xtra 7%
Cherry Coke 7%
Barq's Rootbeer 7%
Caffeine Free Diet 3%
Fanta Orange 3%
Coke Zero 3%
Rasp. Iced Tea 2%
MM Light Lemonade 2%
Iced Tea 2%
Sprite Zero 2%
Vanilla Coke 1%
Hi-C Fruit Punch 1%

Diet Soda Mix (30% of all sales)
Diet Coke 63%
Caffeine Free Diet 10%
Coke Zero 8%
MM Light Lemonade 7%
Iced Tea 7%
Sprite Zero 5%

We go through about one 5gal BIB of Caffeine Free Diet in a normal month. We use 2.5gal BIB for Vanilla Coke. Generally we don't have much of a problem going through a full BIB before the expire date. In fact, where we had the problem was when we had all of the Cokes hooked up to bag selectors so there was always 2 BIBs connected for each fountain.

For what it's worth, our other theatre is in a community with a very high senior population (something like 50% are 50 or older) and a higher than normal religious concentration - with higher than normal LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses concentrations. At that theatre the diet flavors make up about 45% of all sales and the Caffeine Free Diet Coke is about 20% of the total Diet Coke sales.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-14-2009, 09:17 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
The main reason I wouldn't want to sell nuts or seeds is because the shells wind up all over the floor - often covered in the person's saliva. To that end, I always feel like shooting those people who smuggle in a bag of sunflower seeds and leave a pile of shells on the floor.

They sell nuts sans shells. It'd be extremely dumb to sell them with shells.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 02-14-2009, 09:55 AM:

Out of the shell the portion would look so small you would never sell any. The profit comes from it appearing to be a big bag because it is 70% shells. I have never seen peanuts for sale at a theatre or sports park out of the shell unless it was surrounded by chocolate and a thin candy shell. I have seen roasted almonds once somewhere but I think it was a playhouse.

If nuts were sellable, more theatres would be doing it. They are not. Stick with cotton candy, pretzels, nachos and possibly hot dogs if you are busy enough.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 02-14-2009, 02:10 PM:

I've seen a number of venues with the 1.75 oz Planters Peanuts (shelled). Likewise, Planters makes shelled sunflowers, and cashews, too. The product amount seems decent, but anyone who thinks peanuts are healthy needs to look at the nutritional info.

I agree, though-- shelled is just a stupid idea (and gross, when it comes to sunflower seeds).

I'm also not a big believer in ice cream sales, either-- all you need is for some kid to drop it on the floor and then you've got the ice cream AND the chocolate to deal with, not to mention some brat who might chuck it at the screen.

Regarding candy, customers seem to go crazy for those cookie dough bites (I think they're disgusting) and Sour Patch Kids over the usual fare. When I was doing concessions, they used to be my top sellers.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-14-2009, 03:57 PM:

There was a time when I used to get a small bag of pop corn for about $2.50 and a small soda for about $2.00 but not anymore. Popcorn is over $5.00 but the serving is huge and soda is about $3.00 and come in a larger size. Because of my semi retired status with a fixed income I do my best to budget as much as I can. As a senior citizen, I pay $675.00 for my admission ticket and feel spending an additional $5.00 for popcorn and soda is ok but having to pay almost twice as much is out of the question. I no longer buy anything at the concession stand and usually eat before or after the movie. This is another reason I seldom go to the movies anymore. By waiting about two or three months, I can see the same theatrical movies at home with snacks costing far less than it would at a theatre.

-Claude

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-14-2009, 06:33 PM:

I think you moved that decimal a few too many places over. At least I HOPE the SENIOR rate isn't $675!

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-14-2009, 06:43 PM:

You are right again, Chris [Smile]

My senior ticket price is $6.75

-Claude

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 02-14-2009, 07:01 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
Along with other suggestions, I'm curious to know if any theatres have had luck selling "healthy" snack food options.

We brought in "Taste of Nature" back in 1993 when advertising healthy eating was still more of a novelty than not. It lasted about one year before being chucked. I recall we had yogurt covered raisins, yogurt covered pretzels, dried apricots, and trail mix. The staff ate most of the pretzels and the raisins and apricots were just plain nasty. Profit was less than 1%.

Bottled water was also brought in that same year. Customers initially laughed their asses off when they saw that. (Trends tend to reach this part of the country rather late.) Today, the bottled water sales are phenomenal, most especially in the summer, of course.

Our location is very much still a "popcorn and soda" stand. Soft pretzels were tried and failed. As did both hot and iced coffees. We never attempted hot dogs - due largely in part to limited space.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-14-2009, 08:59 PM:

We did try hot dogs and nachos on a couple of occasions. With dogs, we wound up throwing out more than we were selling. With Nachos, the cheese would get old (gallon cans). I've been tempted to try nachos again with the new single-serve cheeses, but haven't yet.

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 02-14-2009, 09:11 PM:

We find that certain snacks are perfered by different demographics. For example, the #1 consumers of Pepsi Freeze at our theater are teenage girls. Sno Caps sell great among senior citizens. We have no problem at all with old cheese . . . jalapeno peppers, on the other hand, yeah they get old in the can.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 02-15-2009, 06:35 AM:

Mike you should try and do the prepacked chips and the single searving cheese. I think these would do great for you. Plus it won't kill the bank to try them. You'll have less loss on the chips and the cheese. Get the mini white corn chips if your going to try it. These are by far the best.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-16-2009, 08:04 PM:

Yea, Rico's cheese in those little 4oz sealed cups are the best to have..with various ranges of taste-from wussy mild to "Where's in the hell is that damned jumbo COKE??!"

(course, we sell the normal type of cheese and I add pepper juice to give that nasty zing that really makes a good nacho.)

Those cups, you can put in a warmer to keep heated (not microwave type) along with the chips

www.vistar.com is a conc supplier that carries this stuff even though other suppliers cary Rico products. Denver would be Mike's region.

Or you can get the heated dispenser type and the cheese comes in a small sealed bag that looks like a mini BIB. Then one can either have cheese on the chips, or on the side.
-Monte

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-16-2009, 08:36 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Or you can get the heated dispenser type and the cheese comes in a small sealed bag that looks like a mini BIB. Then one can either have cheese on the chips, or on the side

We switched to the Gehl's BiB cheese about 2 years ago and our nacho sales have been up ever since. We pour it into the cheese well to control the portions. We also use a 2oz souffle cup/lid to serve sides of nacho cheese for 50¢. This has increased our sales of cheese cups with the pretzels - previously we only had the 3.5oz Funacho cup at $1.25. Our cheese cost is about 40¢ (as opposed to about 50¢ for the Funacho cup) on a tray of nachos and less than 25¢ on a cheese cup. Plus I think it's a tastier product than the Funacho cheese.

When we switched I was concerned about extra cleaning as a result of spilled cheese, but in close to 2 years I don't think we've had more than 3-4 spills.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-16-2009, 09:58 PM:

Yea, that's what it is - the Gehl's products (been a while since we used the Gehl's products mainly due to the kids would somehow love to bust that valve that attaches to the bag since they don't know how to take care of things, nor were they ever shown how to..).. and their cheese IMO is far better tasting than the Rico's variety.

Posted by Poon Limpapun (Member # 4551) on 02-18-2009, 11:21 AM:

We started selling the new sandwich products today and they are pre-packaged from our supplier. The sales mix was around 10.15% which is considered not bad for its first day as we do not have any kind of POP displays yet. Luckily, the COGS was so low that we could do lots of combos for introduction. We are actually figuring out a way to add chips + sandwich + small drink into a kids tray presentation to boost sales.