Marketing Healthy Food in the Tuckshop Part 2
This month we continue exploring how to market healthy food to kids with a focus on quality and variety. Click here to read the first installment of our marketing and promotion series.
Getting your product mix right is about having menu items that your students will want to buy.
Students want a QUALITY product that is consistent.
Having a consistent product is important for maintaining customers’ expectations and their perception of the quality of the service. If the consistency varies each time a purchase is made from the tuckshop, then it’s possible for students to lose confidence in the tuckshop and choose to spend their money elsewhere (like in local stores, before and after school).
Would you be a return customer if sometimes you get a great sandwich and other times it is a bit disappointing?
Question: How do you deliver a consistent product?
Answer: Ensure volunteers and staff are well trained or know what is expected. Consider placing photos in the food preparation area of how the final product is meant to look.
High quality products:
• Make use of fresh ingredients where possible. Seasonal produce is the freshest so try to include specials that make use of seasonal fruits and vegetables.
• Are served at the right temperature – cold food needs to be served cold and hot food needs to be served hot. Regularly check heating and refrigeration equipment to make sure it is working effectively
You may like to consider doing a meal quality audit by sampling 1 hot item and 1 cold item at serving time to see how the item tastes and looks
Students need VARIETY
A lack of variety in your menu can lead to disinterest amongst customers. Why not try including daily or weekly specials that change regularly to create variety without the need for a large menu? Offering theme days, weeks or a devoting a whole month to a cuisine can work well to increase variety offered to students.
Ideas for theme days
Mexican
Menu suggestions:
– Mexican mince rolls (prepare beef chilli con carne with lots of beans and vegetables and serve in a roll or over rice)
– Mexican chicken salad (serve grilled chicken with couscous, beans, corn, reduced fat cheese and tomato salsa)
– Burritos
French
Menu suggestions:
– French style baguettes/rolls with lean meat and salad
– Vegetarian quiche and salad
– French toast cups filled with fruit
Australian
Menu suggestions:
– Shephards Pie with salad
– Homemade spinach and ricotta sausage rolls
– Iced fruit kebabs
In coming newsletters we will continue to share our marketing ideas and the great things we are seeing in school tuckshops.