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NUT SALES
Who doesn’t love nuts? They provide a delicious and nutritious snack. They add pizzazz to just about every food, from brownies to cereal to salads. And if you coat them with candy, like Jordan almonds, or bury them in chocolate, they are even more irresistible.
You can make a small business out of selling packaged nuts in office buildings. Check with the building owner or property manager to see if it would be OK for you to approach the businesses in the building to sell nuts as snacks to their workers. Once you get the green light to be in the building, check with the appropriate person at each office in the building. Ask if it would be OK for you to come by on a specific day each week at a specific time to sell your snacks to their employees. If you can assure them that you will be efficient about it and not be disruptive, you will most likely get permission from them as well.
Find a nut supplier and stock up on just a few of many different kinds of nuts and nut/candy combinations. The supplier can tell you what tends to be their most popular items; trail mix, for example, is one type of nut snack that sells well.
Experiment with others. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers what they would like you to carry and what they like the best. It will benefit you both for you to carry the products they want to buy.
THINGS TO CONSIDER
Be sure to accumulate a few large customers, because if you lose one, which you will, it will put a huge dent in your sales. You need to have enough customers, in a variety of sizes and locations, so that losing one won’t have a devastating impact.
HOW DO YOU WANT TO SPEND YOUR DAY?
Most likely, you will be tootling around to several different places during the course of your day. You should enjoy the kind of day where you are never in one place for very long.
That said, you will want to coordinate your stops so that you are in one area one day of the week and another area the next—or even one place just in the morning, another in the afternoon. Once you have some territories established, you will figure out the best way to be efficient.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
The first thing you will need is a vehicle. You will want something that easily accommodates those square plastic storage tubs. This can help you easily organize your different snacks. It would also be helpful to be able to fit a hand truck in your vehicle to use to wheel several tubs in the building at once.
One of the most cost-effective ways to do this business is to buy your nuts and snacks in bulk and divide them into smaller bags yourself. To do this, you will need a supply of plastic bags and a heat sealer.
After they are sealed, they will need to be labeled so people know what they are buying. You could just use a permanent market to write on the bag what is in it, but you can easily create stick-on labels on a computer—and this would look more neat and professional.
Don’t forget; even though they are snacks, this is still food. The more professional looking it is, the more trustworthy people will find your snacks.
MARKETING ANGLE
Although nuts are not low-fat, they are healthy. Promote this aspect of them. And even nuts that are covered with candy can be a healthier snack than the candy alone!
Also, you may want to carry a supply of general nuts, such as chopped walnuts, and remind people that they may want to do some baking over the weekend.
NICE TOUCH
A nice touch in any food business is to give customers the chance to try new things. If your supplier offers something you have never carried—wasabi peas or berry-flavored yogurt-covered raisins—buy some and divide them into small sample bags that you sell for a small amount of money.
Let people try something new without taking too much of a risk. They will not feel badly about spending a dollar on something they decide they don’t like. But nuts can be expensive, so people will be less likely to try something if it is $6.95.
EXPANSION POSSIBILITIES
Expanding in this business is often a matter of carrying new items such as branching out from nuts to include popcorn, chips, and other snack foods. Beware that you don’t dilute your marketing angle, though. If you are relying on the healthy aspect of your nut business, be sure to add only items that are also healthy.
Another way to expand is to create static displays of your nut snacks to be sold in the offices you also visit—you can restock the display and sell your usual other items. And you can always offer the service of creating gift baskets of your nut and snack items: Take orders one week while you are in the building and deliver them the next.
WORDS TO KNOW
Peanuts: technically not a nut, peanuts are a legume like beans and peas.
Omega-3:A type of fatty acid prevalent in nuts that is considered “good cholesterol” and has been thought to help aid in lowering the risk of coronary heart disease.
Trail mix: A combination of nuts, seeds, dried fruits, candied fruits, and small candies like M&Ms that are mixed together and considered good for a quick pick-me-up while hiking.
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