SACHETS - THE HIDDEN GP KILLER!!!

Last week I was out with my 2 daughters and found myself dragged into a well-known fast food chain. Having ordered our meals, and not having any Stokes Sauces to hand, I had to ask for some of their sauce. To my surprise, and amazement, the person serving me handed over 6 pots of sauce for 2 meals and when I questioned this, he said “don’t worry they’re free!”

Sachets, like anything in the business, have a cost and it got me thinking… If a major national chain with lots of training given to their staff still had profit being thrown away as freely as this, how wide is this problem?

Here at Stokes, when we developed our premium sauce sachet, we didn’t just want to reproduce the generic 9-12g industry portions which on average you end up using 3 or 4 to get the amount you would have at home. We developed our Sachets with “Real World” portions of our award-winning sauces inside. Our Tomato Ketchup has 40g, and our Brown, BBQ, Mayonnaise and Tartare have 32g/32ml. Delivering more taste and less waste!

Since developing these, we have been working with groups and independents looking at ways in which we can improve their sachet offering and the training of staff in controlling the waste. Although not right for every environment, we have advocated taking control back on the sachets and not leaving them front of house for people to help themselves, especially in seasonal areas where they end up in caravans and tents at the expense of the business owners.

We have also looked at helping businesses if they are looking to transition to charging for sauce portions, by using a premium offering that is not a known value item, it makes that switch more palatable for the end users.

There is also the opportunity of additional revenue streams for places such as self-catering holiday venues and parks. Being obvious sauce fans, it always occurred to me that whenever you go on holiday generally you forget your sauces and you end up buying a bottle of generic mainstream ketchup for ￡1-￡1.50 from site shop (not making a lot of profit for anyone). Our solution to this was when looking at the average family, one will be a ketchup fan or Brown (let’s not start that one), one will be a mayo fan and then there’s the ever-popular BBQ thrown into the mix as well. With this is mind, why not do a pick and mix where everyone is happy, and your customers can buy the sauces they all want. The upside for the holiday park/campsite is they are selling a selection 2/3 times in a week as opposed to just a ￡1.50 bottle once. Furthermore, because we are not saturated in retail, there is the added benefit of possibly selling a bottle at the end of the week for happy customers to take home!

I would welcome the chance to look at this within your business and anyway in which we can help please contact me on [email protected] or 07872 00647