Top 5 Healthy Vending Machine Snack Questions You Need Answered
Before taking the plunge into entrepreneurialism, it’s important to make a list of questions you need answered. It’s also important to ask yourself what questions aren’t on my list. What have I forgotten to ask? One of the main advantages of starting a franchise is that your questions have probably been brought up by many others. I decided to kill the suspense, and answer the top 5 questions prospective franchise business owners ask about healthy vending machine snacks.
Why questions about healthy vending machine snacks? Because if you’re considering a vending franchise business, one of your biggest questions is (or should be)…what about the healthy snacks?
Here goes:
1. “Do I have to find the products myself?”
What You Might Be Imagining
Your vending machine runs out of kale chips unexpectedly. It’s Wednesday around lunchtime, and you have no choice. You must make a midday run to Costco — just in time for the lunch rush. You battle the traffic on the way in, find a parking spot a mile away, and proceed towards the door. You avert being trampled over potstickers, then again over asiago bagels… You finally reach the back. And the kale chips are out of stock.
How It Really Works:
At HUMAN, we have a Product Portal, a one-stop shop for HUMAN approved products. Franchisees are able to order their products easily, affordably, and receive free shipping.
How We Got Here:
Franchisees used up to 5 sources for products that they couldn’t order directly through the manufacturer. Costco and Sam’s club generally have the cheapest prices, but this does require a shopping trip, which can be tiresome and also frustrating when they don’t have every product for your vending machines. Additionally, many source though wholesale distributers like UNFI (they have a focus on healthy food, but higher minimum purchase prices) and Vistar (less catered to healthy products , but they have lower minimums), or through Amazon (15% off when ordering 5 or more products monthly).
2. “Are all of your products 100% healthy? Do they even taste good?”
What You Might Be Thinking:
Not every product on the HUMAN website is really healthy—everything is still packaged and there are still preservatives. What’s so great about these products?
The people in my community eat poorly, and I’m not sure if they’re going to start eating carrot sticks just because they’re convenient — how do you know healthy vending will catch on in my market? Is there some kind of guarantee?
The Better-For-You-Balance:
HUMAN takes snacking very seriously (we like to call ourselves “Snack Masters.”) We are committed to helping unite mankind and nutrition — to do so, we work with industry leaders, as well as registered dietitians, public health professionals and nutrition activists, to provide our franchisees and locations with the most, delicious and affordable foods and beverages on the market. That said, our product guidelines were designed to provide healthier options— you won’t see any artificial ingredients or huge quantities of preservatives in HUMAN healthy vending machines, but we also don’t only sell carrot sticks.
In a recent interview, Sean Kelly described our snack methodology. “Our goal is to look at a particular population, what their taste profile is, what their needs are, and then integrate products with the highest potential health and nutrition profile that they’ll actually consume and eat….You might have healthy stuff, but if people don’t eat it, it doesn’t matter.”
HUMAN has incredibly expertise and experience providing healthy vending machines snacks throughout the country. Over the years, we’ve learned which healthy products sell the best and we’ve created our Product Portal with this in mind. We only carry the best vending machine snacks that have proven to meet our high standards for quality, taste and profitability for both our franchisees and locations. Additionally, we’ll guide you and work with your locations to determine the perfect product offerings. That way you can focus on establishing the best possible business. With all the health terms flying around you may even have to ask yourself what actually is organic?
3. “Do I have to use your products?”
What You Might Be Thinking:
What if there’s a sale on a HUMAN approved product, what if I know of a local healthy product, what if there’s a brand I really like that’s not on your Approved Product List?
What the Facts Show:
As previously mentioned, many of our franchisees purchase their products from a variety of sources. The HUMAN Product Portal is a means to make product sourcing much easier. Due to our purchasing power and partnerships with the nation’s largest healthy product distributors, we’re able to offer our franchisees greater convenience, and the lowest pricing on healthy snacks, foods and beverages. However, as long as it’s on our Approved Product List, our franchisees are welcome to purchase products anywhere. If a product is not yet approved, you must seek pre-approval from our product department. If the product is deemed healthy, it will be approved for sale.
4. “What are the margins?”
What You Might Be Thinking:
Healthy products are expensive…is it possible to make money selling healthy snacks?
What HUMAN Franchisees Experience:
Many HUMAN Franchisees currently see gross margins between 55-60%. This is just an average, of course. Some products do better than others. We hope this will continue to decrease as we find more P3’s (Preferred Product Partners), and expand our proprietary line of snacks (Super HUMAN Snacks).
5. “What are some top sellers?”
HUMAN has products that you’re familiar with — we have great relationships with some of the big names in the health food business. But, we also are always looking for innovative new product trends, and we love trying snacks from the new companies out there.
Here are some of our favorites:
And, if you’re interested in learning more about Owning a Healthy Vending Business click here:
- How to Choose the Right Franchise Opportunity - March 6, 2015
- Top 5 Healthy Vending Machine Snack Questions You Need Answered - February 26, 2015
- Trending Alert: Healthy Vending 3.0 - February 19, 2015
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