Choose-Your-Own Meat Bar adds $500 per Week in Pure Profit

About

Granite Falls IGA Granite Falls, WA
Department: Deli
Difficulty: Medium

Store Specs
Size of full store – 24,000 sq ft
Size of meat bar – 5 ft long, 46 inches deep
Annual sales of store – $10 million

Strategy

"For the last eight weeks, we have been offering a meat bar in our deli each day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Each day we offer three types of wings and boneless wings from a rotation of seven flavors, a pork rib, a smoked kielbasa, and a BBQ meatball. Customers choose from a cardboard hot box or a bucket that holds two pounds or more of meat. Then, they help themselves to the meats of their choice. So far, the teriyaki wings, salt and vinegar wings, and pork ribs have proven to be customer favorites. Most of our wings cost between $1.50 and $2.50 per pound, the meatballs and kielbasa cost around $2.75 per pound, and the ribs are about $3.50 per lb. The blended cost is around $2.50 per pound. We have generated about $1,000 in sales on the meat bar per week, for a weekly profit of $500.”

$8,500
in sales in 8 weeks

1,400
pounds of meat

blended gross over
50%

WHY IT WORKS

For Our Shoppers

Quick Meal
Our shoppers love that there is always a hot snack, lunch, or dinner ready for them to grab and eat.

Good Value
At $5.99 per pound, the meat bar is a great deal. It also helps us show real value to our customers, as Safeway offers a similar bar for $1.00 per pound more.

Great Variety
Our customers love that we have so many options. Instead of just putting out a platter of wings for guests, they can treat their guests to a spread of several types of wings, ribs, and meatballs.

For Our Store

Items are Easy to Prepare
Most of the meat items that we feature are pre-cooked. We just have to re-heat the meats in the oven and/or the fryer.

Don’t Have Much Shrink
If anything is left over, we sell it in the grab-and-go cold case the next day for food stamp customers.

Quick ROI
The total cost, with shipping, for the case is around $8500; the electrical wiring is around $1200; and the pans and small wares cost $300. With weekly profits of about $500, it only takes about six months to recoup our investment.

Tactics

1. Analyze your power and space needs to determine if the meat bar will work in your store.
2. Talk to your distributors to determine which products are available.
3. Nine weeks before you want to launch the meat bar, place the order for your case.
4. Develop a marketing campaign to let customers know that the meat bar has arrived. We used Facebook, weekly email offers, in-store digital coupons, and game day specials to promote our products.

Pricing
$5.99/lb.

Pro Tips

• Be sure to choose a nice variety of types of meat and sauce flavors. Feedback from our customers indicates that they love to have options beyond the traditional chicken wings.
• Make sure that deli employees are keeping a close eye on the meat bar. You want it to stay nice and fresh by rotating the product at least twice a day, or more when needed.
• Be prepared for busy days. For example, while we have had a great response to the meat bar every day of the week, it is particularly popular on game days. So, we know that we need to be ready to prepare more meat and watch the bar more closely to make sure that it is well-stocked when a big game is on.

Have a best practice of your own? We want to hear it!