Posts tagged sales
Healthy vending snacks on the rise
Feb 6th
Written by Ann Schimke on Feb 5th, 2013. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
Jamie Marrufo, a senior at Greeley West High School, noticed right away that the vending machine in the student commons looked a little different when she got back from winter break.
One of the new vending machines offering healthier snacks in the Weld School District 6.
“I was like, ‘Where are the Snickers?’”
They were gone.
So were the rest of the candy bars as well as the fried potato and corn chips. In their place were baked chips, honey wheat pretzels, Chex Mix, beef jerky, granola bars, and pouches of trail mix, peanuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. The change was part of a district-wide vending machine makeover intended to offer snacks lower in fat, sugar and calories.
Although Marrufo, who buys snacks from the machine about twice a week, loves Snickers bars, she likes the new vending machine choices too.
“It’s healthy food,” she said. “I think it’s good.”
Her friend Aimee Veenendaal, a junior who doesn’t like candy, also approved of the changes.
“I actually like it because that’s basically what I eat…the healthier stuff.”
Weld County School District 6 launched the new snack vending program in early January with the help of a $157,329 grant from the Colorado Health Foundation. The grant paid for the district’s 16 food vending machines, a vending truck, the salary of a district vending employee for one year and marketing materials to promote the new program.
Jenna Schiffelbein, the district’s wellness specialist, said the impetus for the switch was feedback from a district-wide wellness assessment in 2011-12. With the exception of some nut products, the new vending snacks, which are accessible to students only at the district’s four high schools, all adhere to the district’s standards on fat and sugar content. In addition, each snack is coded with a red, yellow or green sticker indicating that, nutritionally speaking, it is “good,” “better,” or “best.”
The district has not changed the contents of its beverage vending machines as part of the new program, though Schiffelbein said that may come later. Currently, beverage machines in all Colorado districts are regulated by the state’s Healthy Beverages Policy standards, which prohibit soda from being sold to students.
Do your homework
- Colorado’s Healthy Beverage Policy standards
- Colorado law banning trans fat from school food, effective 9/1/13
- Resources for healthy vending programs from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation
- Colorado Legacy Foundation: School Nutrition Data Snapshot
- Colorado laws on “School Food Environment” from the National Association of State Boards of Education’s“State School Healthy Policy Database”
- Centers for Disease Control report: “Competitive Foods and Beverages in U.S. Schools: A State Policy Analysis”
Healthy vending programs increasing
Weld District 6 is part of a growing group of Colorado districts that have slimmed down their vending machine snacks in recent years. While there is no hard data on the number of districts that have launched healthy vending programs, school nutrition leaders agree that more and more districts are heading in this direction.
Denver Public Schools and Jeffco Public Schools launched healthy vending programs several years ago, Boulder Valley joined the club last year, and Adams 12 is currently in the process of making the switch.
Jane Brand, director of the Colorado Department of Education’s Office of School Nutrition, said a variety of factors have driven the change, including the USDA’s updated nutrition standards for school meals, which took effect last fall, and its new, long-awaited “Smart Snacks in Schools” proposal, which came out Feb. 1.
Greater awareness about health and wellness in schools and high-profile initiatives such as Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign have also contributed to the push for healthier vending snacks, she said.
Naomi Steenson, director of Nutrition Services and Before and After School Enrichment in Adams 12, said, “It’s the right thing to do for the kids.”
The Jeffco experience
In Jeffco Public Schools, the largest district in the state, the vending program was revamped with healthier food in 2007-08 after a state audit found the district in violation of the federally-mandated “Competitive Foods” rule barring vending items from being sold when school meals are served. Linda Stoll, executive director of Food and Nutrition Services, said the district’s vending machines were supposed to be on timers that would disable them at the appropriate times, but because they lacked the technology the machines were always on.
As a result of the violation, the district launched a new vending bid process, specifying nutrition guidelines from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an organization focused on reducing childhood obesity. The guidelines use a common rule called the “35-10-35” standard, which stipulates that no more than 35 percent of a snack’s total calories can be from fat, no more than 10 percent can be from saturated and trans fat, and no more than 35 percent of a snack’s weight can be from sugar. Boulder Valley also uses these guidelines while Weld 6 uses a slightly stricter “30-10-35” standard.
In addition to a version of the 35-10-35 standard, some districts opt for additional parameters. For example, Boulder Valley also bans vending fare with non-nutritive sweeteners, hydrogenated or trans fat, artificial dyes, additives or preservatives. Jeffco prohibits high fructose corn syrup.
Not all snacks that met the letter of Jeffco’s standards were approved by Stoll. She vetoed MoonPies because she believed they were unhealthy though somehow they met the guidelines.
Stoll said she hopes the changes, which affected students in 17 high schools, have encouraged students to make healthier food choices.
“I’m sure kids miss Flamin’ Hot Cheetos but I haven’t heard a lot of complaints,” she said.
Impact on sales
While many food service directors expect some decline in sales after switching to healthier vending fare, it’s hard to quantify since individual schools often manage the day-to-day details of vending machines.
A vending machine containing healthier snacks at Greeley West High School.
At Fairview High School in Boulder, sales have dropped about 44 percent since new healthier vending snacks were introduced last winter. Still, school treasurer Ronda Pendergrass said the decrease may have nothing to do with a lack of interest in healthier choices. Instead, she believes it’s because the old machines weren’t properly programmed to be disabled during the school’s lunch periods until a few months into the 2011-12 school year. Thus, they racked up more sales than they should have.
Vending proceeds at Fairview benefit the athletics program, paying for sports equipment, signing parties for college-bound student athletes and some scholarships, said Pendergrass.
In Weld District 6, Nutrition Services Director Jeremy West said with the new vending selection in place, “Sales may dip a little bit. We do not have candy bars in there. We do not have gummy worms in there.”
Ultimately, West’s goal is for the new vending program is to break even, fully supporting itself after the grant funding is gone. Under the new program, 15 percent of vending sales will return to the schools that house the machines and 85 percent will go to the nutrition services department.
Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for Boulder Valley School District (and an expert on EdNews Parent), said she’s not concerned about whether sales have dropped since the district switched to healthier vending items last winter.
“Our job is to serve kids full, healthy lunches…how much money we bring in in vending is not the priority.”
Colorado business confidence remains positive going into first quarter, says CU Leeds School index
Jan 2nd
For the first quarter of 2013 the LBCI, conducted by the Leeds School’s Business Research Division, posted an overall confidence reading of 51.3, down slightly from 51.6 in the fourth quarter of 2012. A reading greater than the neutral mark of 50 indicates positive expectations and one less than 50 indicates negative expectations going forward
Business leaders are optimistic about all of the metrics of the quarterly index except for the national economy and industry hiring plans. The other categories measured include the state economy, industry sales, industry profits and capital expenditures.
“For months, drags on the national economy have included the European debt crisis, the slow rate of employment growth and the resolution of the federal debt crisis,” said economist Richard Wobbekind, executive director of the Business Research Division. “While Colorado business leaders have stronger confidence in the local economy than the national economy, they’re proceeding very cautiously.”
Confidence in the state economy, which is at 55.5 points for the first quarter of 2013, outstrips that of the national economy, which posted a reading of 47. The outpacing of confidence in Colorado’s economy compared to the national economy is a 30-quarter trend, based on LBCI results.
Business leaders’ sales expectations for the first quarter rose to 54.4, up from 53.2 last quarter, and are buoyed by 44.1 percent of LBCI respondents who anticipate an increase in the first quarter versus only 25.2 percent who predict a decline. Meanwhile, leaders’ profit expectations fell to 51.6, down from 52.2 for the last quarter of 2012.
Hiring expectations have slipped into negative territory at 49.3, down from 51 in the last quarter of 2012, while capital expenditures remain close to neutral at 50.1.
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CU Business Review: Colorado’s becoming “beverage”-can capital
Oct 15th
More than 92 billion aluminum beverage cans were sold in the U.S. in 2011 reflecting a decline in annual sales — particularly among standard 12-ounce cans — since the industry’s peak five years prior.
But a number of Colorado companies, including Ball Corp., are well positioned to tap new markets in the evolving industry. Ball employs more than 3,000 workers statewide, and packaging accounts for 90 percent of the company’s sales.
“Beverage industry employment is growing faster than manufacturing employment and total employment in the state and is outperforming beverage manufacturing employment nationally,” said Richard Wobbekind, editor of the quarterly Colorado Business Review.
According to the latest edition of the review, published by the Business Research Division of the Leeds School of Business, the U.S. beverage can market remains quite healthy with a unit share of just over 40 percent.
Experts attribute the sales decline of 12-ounce cans to weak economic growth, which has consumers “trading down” to less expensive products, among other factors.
By contrast, demand for specialty can sizes grew at a robust rate of approximately 15 percent last year. From the 5.5-ounce mini-can to the 32-ounce jumbo can, brand owners are leveraging the unique sizes and shapes of the beverage cans to drive differentiation in the market.
One well-known specialty package from Ball is the Alumi-Tek bottle, or aluminum pint. Brewers have enjoyed great success with the bottles, which offer re-closable caps. Craft beers and wines have increasingly found their way into aluminum cans. Even water sold in cans has grown more than 30 percent since 2008.
“The current decrease in the U.S. beverage can market is more a sign of progress than one of decline as the industry shifts away from reliance on just the 12-ounce can,” says Jim Peterson, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs for Ball Corp. “Ball is expanding into new products and capabilities to meet demand.”
Peterson cites more than $175 million in investment across the U.S., including $60 million in Colorado for a new specialty can line in the company’s Golden, Colo., facility and a nearly $5 million expansion of its package research and development operations in Westminster, Colo.
Colorado beverage makers also benefit from state laws that support self-distribution, allowing young brands and small producers to go to market. New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colo., America’s third-largest craft brewery, started selling beer out of the back of a station wagon.
The Business Research Division of CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business conducts Colorado-focused economic and marketing studies, collaborating with faculty researchers, government entities, business leaders, nonprofit organizations and students. For more information visit http://leeds.colorado.edu/brd#coloradobusinessreview.