Its old news now, but the recession has brought the food wars back, and the restaurant chains are doing backward summersaults to get people in their doors. Most chains are offering discounts to get value conscious consumers inside.
Pizza Hut began the year offering any size pizza with toppings for $10. Taco Bell has a $2 menu featuring four different combo meals. Dennys has $2, $4 and $6 and $8 value meals.
Burger King recently made a bid for the casual dining audience with its $8.99 ribs. It only shows how anxious they are to grab market share wherever they can.
Convenience stores recognize the opportunity to win more food sales, and they are also offering more value meals.
The vending industry has as much to gain and lose as any class of trade in this economy. While the vend food sector has taken a big hit in this recession, vending operators cannot afford to throw in the towel. The food sale is up for grabs, and operators need to think creatively how they can win that sale. Its not just the sandwich sale thats at stake here; its also the beverage and snack sale.
The range of food products for vending is broader today than ever before, with plenty of high quality, name brand products. Vend food offers the best values available to consumers.
Besides the traditional cold food machine, there are products that can go in ambient snack machines.
Many excellent food products were displayed at recent National Automatic Merchandising OneShow in Chicago.
Despite the beating that the food segment has taken in recent years, the product manufacturers have continued to offer high quality sandwiches and entrees.
Vending operators also need to upgrade their marketing to let customers know the excellent values they offer. One technique that has worked is to compare the offerings in the vending machine with those in competing fast food restaurants and convenience stores. In captive audiences, this can be done fairly easily using email and social media.
Are you getting hungry?
