Getting Food Sold
Making a profit by getting your food sold – the key is marketing and promotion
Time and time again we hear from school canteen managers whose canteens are making a healthy profit that the key to their success is marketing and promoting their canteen and menu to their students.
I can hear you saying “…but I don’t have an advertising budget! I can’t sponsor sporting teams or give away cars in competitions! How can I ‘market’ my canteen?”
Marketing is anything that you can do to create a demand amongst your students for your food. Marketing is a proven way of increasing profits.
So how do you create a demand? How do other school canteens create a demand?
It’s as easy as PPPP! Marketing is about the 4 P’s:
1. Product
2. Place/Presentation
3. Price
4. Promotion
Product
This is about having a product that your students want to buy. Think about the quality (freshness, served at the right temperature), having different foods for different seasons and plenty of variety. Offer limited-time ‘specials’ to maintain interest. Many fast food outlets do this!
Place/Presentation
This is about displaying food attractively, at eye level, in appropriate containers. It is also about having a canteen that is a place where students will want to spend some of their recess and lunch times.
Price
Price matters to children and teenagers with limited spending money. Students love value for money. Show how school items compare with the same items sold at the corner shop. Revive interest in an old product by selling it at a special rate.
Promotion
Promotion is the mix of advertising and other techniques that can be used by school canteens to make your students aware of what you have to sell and to persuade them to buy. Here are some promotional ideas that other school canteens have used successfully!
- Manly Selective conducted a taste testing of new products with their SRC. The students gave feedback on a number of possible menu items and provided valuable advice and suggestions regarding flavours, serving sizes, menu ideas and packaging.
- Decorate a menu board to promote your menu items. North Sydney Girls High School had an art student decorate their menu board.
- Get your school canteen featured in the local paper. Every two months Bulahdelah Central write a press release for their local papers “This is one of the best ways to promote the canteen, the school and our fresh food strategy” says canteen manager Naomi.
- Have an appealing name for your canteen. Wheeler Heights Public School ran a competition to name their school canteen. They had hundreds of entries from students, teachers and parents. The students feel they own the canteen. First prize was $5.00 to spend in the canteen. The sign was paid for with a Commonwealth Government “Healthy Active School Communities” grant.
- Use technology to promote the canteen menu. St Peter’s Catholic College canteen promotes their menu by emailing students. They email about menu specials, price rises, changes to the menu, special days and new menu items. After a recent taste testing students emailed Gwenda, the canteen manager with their feedback. Teachers also email Gwenda if a class is going to be away from school for lunch.
- Decorate your canteen. Mt Austin Public School has decorated their school canteen to promote fruit and vegetables.
Market Research - Know Your Customers
It is important to know who you are ‘marketing and promoting’ your products to. Find out as much as you can about the students and staff who use your canteen and the ones that don’t! Find out what they like about the canteen, what they don’t like, how much money they are prepared to spend and what foods they would like to see available in the canteen.
Classify your customers into groups. For example teachers may want different things from your canteen than the students. It is also important to know what the parents of the students think about the canteen and what they want. In most cases they provide the money to purchase your menu items. They are certainly a group to keep happy!
So how do you find out what students, staff and parents want from your canteen? Surveys are the best way. There are some sample survey questionnaires on our website. These can be adapted for your school.
Also look at suggestions, complaints and problems as a valuable source of customer market information. Have a ‘Suggestions’ box placed in a prominent place in the canteen.