Thursday, April 17, 2008


"Setting up and using a plan-a-gram"


We used a piece of 30"x40"- 16 gage metal, hung it on the wall. The product packages suspended with a magnetic chip from an office supply store. This represented the products in a full size snack machine.

Setting up and using a plan-a-gram can be a useful tool for making menu changes and communicating these changes to your route personnel.

Chips, Cookies, Candy, Pastry-----

Take each item in the snack, candy product line and placing it into a standard plan-a-gram. This plan-a-gram could be published in a graphic form and used as a reference. Standardize as many machines as possible. Recognize that there may be some variations of this standard because of some special consideration for a location. Narrow the product line as close as possible to your standard. Products that are not part of this standard should be special ordered. Standardizing your product line will help control cost and maximize profitability.

Pricing----------

Tract the unit price for any special order item and make sure the selling price reflects necessary mark up? The items displayed on the Plan-a-gram could be tagged with the proper pricing. Price an item at a minimum of (3x) cost. Example (.19 cents cost) should sell for .60 to .65 cents.