Marketing relies strongly on research and knowing your customer well. Conducting your own small scale market research with the help of one or more classes of students and their teacher/s can pave the way for change. Short surveys of students, parents, staff and any other school community members can give you an indication of their needs and wants, what is likely to sell, their interest in certain ideas and their suggestions for improvement. It allows them to play a part in the decision making and gives you the opportunity to get to know your customers better. After all, the canteen is a mini business. Ideas for survey forms are available in a number of canteen resources.
7.1 Daily specials
Having regular 'specials' on different days of the week can help provide variety without having to offer half a dozen main items each day, and it also helps to maintain children's interest. Even children who do not usually use the canteen will start coming around to see what is available. For example, in addition to a limited selection of regular items, the daily specials board might read:
Monday Hot cheese and corn rolls
Tuesday Hot bean and salsa wraps
Wednesday Tropical chicken burgers with pineapple, cheese, lettuce
Thursday Chicken salad foccacia
Friday Jacket potatoes with beans, cheese and yoghurt
If your school uses an order system, be sure that the price list sent home is clearly designed so that busy parents who only glance at the menu will not mistake the daily specials for regular items.
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7.2 Special days and prices
Special days – whether on a regular or irregular basis – can add variety to the canteen menu, especially for canteens which open on only two or three days a week or which have problems finding volunteer help. Parents who cannot help on a regular basis may be willing to help at a one-off ‘hamburger day’ or ‘jacket potato day’ or ‘soup day’. Several schools have also found these days to be excellent fund raisers.
After several months, new specials can be introduced. Foods such as chicken burgers, pizzas, meals in a cup (e.g. fried rice, spaghetti bolognaise), fruit salad and popcorn may be suitable for special days.
Fruit days
Special days featuring a particular fruit are an excellent way to promote fruit sales. Try organising them when a fruit is in the peak of its season, as this is when it will be of top quality, in plentiful supply and therefore well priced. Grape, watermelon, pear and peach days have been successful in schools around Australia.
Multi-cultural days
This is another good opportunity to add variety to the menu, as well as an educational tool for learning about the goods of other countries.
Heart Week, Nutrition Week, Healthy Bones Week and Health Week
The Tasmanian School Canteen Association Inc. has information on the dates of these annual events.
In most cases, numerous resources produced for these promotions can be used, e.g. posters, stickers and, children’s activity books.
Suggestions for other special days include:
- sporting events such as Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, school swimming carnival, athletics carnival
- special events in your school to promote healthy eating
- muffin mornings (morning tea)
- jaffle day
- veggiemania day – vegetable pizza, savoury muffins
- sand and sea day – crumbed fish and wedges, tuna salad
- hot chocolate day (bring-a-mug day).
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7.3 Product names and samples
Food companies place great importance on naming their products, as it is an important component of overall marketing strategy. Likewise, giving names to various canteen lines – whether they are new lines or new versions of previously existing lines – can also stimulate sales by:
- giving the product a higher ‘profile’
- making the item sound more interesting
- encouraging children to take a new look at the canteen and what it sells.
Food names should be relevant to the children to whom you are selling (e.g. some products are named after popular television or movie characters). For a special day before the school’s athletic carnival, food names can have a sporting flavour.
Initiatives undertaken by one particular school are worth considering. The school wanted to introduce some new foods, but wanted to involve the children so they would be fully aware of the new items. They held a competition called ‘The Game is the Name’ to find the best names for the new ideas. Entry forms described each item (including a sketch). Teachers distributed and collected the entries and returned them to the tuckshop. The response was so overwhelming that seven consolation prizes were also awarded.
The winning names were:
Chicken in a Garden: a chicken drumstick with salad (tomato wedge, slice of pineapple, celery stick, carrot stick and lettuce leaf) on a plate with half a bread roll.
Rooster Booster: a flat pita bread rolled around a filling of chicken, celery, lettuce and mayonnaise and cut in half.
Mouse House: a hot bread roll filled with melted cheese.
The winners received a free lunch from the canteen, stickers and an activity book. Consolation prizes consisted of stickers and an activity book (all donated).
Here are some other popular names:
- Tropical Burgers – burgers with salad and pineapple
- Fruit Wobbles – fruit salad cups set in jelly
- Door Jammers – thick-sliced wholemeal bread with meat and salad
- Fat Cats – tuna, tomato, carrot and cheese rolls
- Green Dazzle Dogs – low fat sausage with salad in a slice of bread
- Monkey Sticks – frozen bananas on a stick and rolled in coconut
- UFOs – half a hot bread roll with melted cheese
- Radar Rolls – flat pita rolled around a filling of cheese and salad
- Fruitas – fruit salad cup (fresh or frozen)
- Cheesies – slices of French bread stick topped with reduced fat cheese and heated under a griller or in the pie oven
- Survival Pack – snack pack of cheese cubes, grapes, arrot sticks and dried apricots
- Gadget Cones – fruit salad in an ice cream cone
- Beano – hot-baked bean roll.
Product sampling
Free samples can stimulate sales at the canteen, just as they can in the supermarket. Many children will not part with their money for a food they have never tasted. A small free sample can convince them that the product is worth buying.
Bite-size pieces of frozen fruits can also be used to introduce frozen fruit to the menu.
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7.4 Competitions
Competitions for students are an excellent way of raising awareness and promoting positive attitudes to new or revamped food lines. They can be organised at either of two stages in the process of introducing new foods: during the planning stage or following the selection of a new food item.
During the planning stage
Individual or class competitions can be held to identify a nutritious food that students would like to see sold by the canteen. The competitions could include:
- choosing the food item
- naming the food item
- designing a poster to appeal to fellow students.
Following a selection of a new food item
A competition can be held to find the most imaginative ‘catchy’ name for items already chosen.
Alternatively, a competition could be held to find the best poster for a new food item soon to be introduced. The winning entry could be displayed in the canteen and ‘runner-up’ entries could be placed on noticeboards around the school.
Prizes can include: free lunches at the canteen; donated goods from local retailers, food manufacturers or distributors; stickers and activity books (for younger children); and free entry vouchers to local attractions or the movie theatre (older students).
7.5 Displays
The saying ‘out of sight out of mind’ is particularly relevant to the sale of foods in canteens. If your canteen has a product which does not sell as well as you would like, ask yourself the following questions:
Is the food product displayed attractively on the front counter or is it in an inconspicuous place?
Is it packaged so that children can see what is inside (e.g. in plastic wrap or see-through containers)?
Show off the colour of sandwich fillings by slicing sandwiches in half or into fingers, placing one on top of the other and wrapping them in plastic wrap. Display them on trays or in cabinets with their cut surfaces showing. Even if your school uses an order system so that displays are not appropriate for main lunch items, children see what their friends unpack and eat, so presentation is still important.
Canteens need to consider some of the techniques used by supermarkets, such as arranging certain products so that they are easily noticed. While most canteens do not have a lot of room for displays, you can still use some of the following techniques:
- Place items you want to promote near other popular lines.
- Attractively display a sample of your items in plastic trays with clear plastic lids.
- Make maximum use of displays at eye level.
- Keep new lines to the front of warming cabinets or other display areas.
- Make use of attractive baskets or glass ‘cookie’ jars (e.g. for dried fruit balls)
Consult with various paper and plastic suppliers about their range of plastic bags, cups and trays, etc. Buying in bulk often results in considerably cheaper prices. However, be careful not to tie up money by holding too much stock. If you are a small school, consider getting together with other local schools and placing the one order. The stock can then be split to meet the needs of each school.
Even when an order system is used for most items, it is still a good idea to display any new items. When children are buying their drinks etc., they may be tempted to try the new items next time they have money for the canteen, instead of buying the usual choice.
7.6 Prices
The right product at the right price is an important combination. Few children would, without prompting, consider nutrition to be more important than price – especially if there is a large price difference between nutritious and less nutritious foods.
Children will often look for something to fill them up at the cheapest price. They will also consider how much change they will have for ‘extras’. When introducing a new food, base your price decisions not only on what is likely to be appealing but also on what you can realistically charge. If the price appears to be high, consider some variations which may bring the price back to a reasonable level.
7.7 Promotions
Promoting your products is one of the most important factors in changing to a healthier canteen or increasing sales of existing nutritious lines. Promotion means more work for those people involved, but the reward comes from knowing that the children are being offered healthy and nutritious foods.
Planning promotional activities can be interesting, exciting work. Schools find that volunteers come ‘out of the woodwork’ once parents realise that their involvement in the canteen can be so rewarding.
A few suggestions for promoting your products are described below.
Notice boards
A large noticeboard with items and prices clearly shown is an excellent way to ensure that children know what is available.
If you have daily specials, advertise them in a prominent place. Specials may be written up one day to act as a reminder to children intending to buy lunch the following day.
Newsletters
Make use of existing resources by advertising new items, specials, etc. in your school's regular newsletter. Some schools have a regular ‘canteen spot’ not only for this purpose, but also to personally thank volunteers for their valuable contributions and to offer handy hints about nutrition.
Notices
For younger children, a separate notice can be sent home advising parents of menu changes or special promotions. Some schools distribute these notices through lunch-order bags.
Announcements
Morning announcements to the whole school are an effective way to advertise a new item or to remind students of a special.
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