October 2008 |
Cost-Saving Tips from Members After more than a year of negotiating, the University of Arizona has secured a 10-year campus beverage contract with Coca Cola. This is certainly not new news, as most of us have benefited from partnerships with beverage suppliers for years. We require a 15 percent competitive shelf space allowance in all of our foodservice vault coolers as part of the RFP. Once again, nothing new. Now that the new vendor is firmly in place, we are trying an age-old practice used by retail grocery stores to charge “slotting fees” for our remaining available 15 percent. The rules are simple:
Example: A 7-door cooler has 6 shelves with 8 slots each, or 336 total slots. 15% = 50 slots, or $2,500 worth of product for the semester. Not bad! The reality is that most of the vendors have product they can use for sampling. We are just asking that they send some of it our way. We give the product to each Due to the tremendous growth in the energy drink category, there is plenty of competition for the space. The cola companies are also quite willing to participate, if for no other reason than not to be left out. No one even blinked at the $50.00 rate, so an increase seems to be on the horizon. The other dividend is that vendors are less likely to offer products that perform poorly, as they now have a vested interest. Even if you do not have a beverage contract, I believe this process would work quite well for your total program. I would love to hear from a school that goes after all 100 percent. Our next step will be to sell the dry display space. That will be done by the foot, but no number has been confirmed. I only wish I had more shelves…… David Galbraith 520 621-7038 |