Concessions

[Anonymous]

What are your best sellers? Do you sell hot foods or just candy? Any healthy options sell? How much profit do you make in a season? What do you use the money for?

I’m new to all this.

[Anonymous]

Fruit cups (prepared night before or day of and kept on ice) do the best for us in both morning and evening meets.

Mornings: burritos, donuts, bagels, smoothies, cup o’ Noodles (yes even when it’s hot outside), coffee.

Evenings: pizza, burgers, hot dogs, nachos, shaved ice.

Plus: water, sodas, chips, candy, etc.

[Anonymous]

For chips, soda, water and even donuts, we ask for donations from parents. It counts as volunteer hours and it’s 100% profit for us. We use it towards coaches bonuses and for their meals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For chips, soda, water and even donuts, we ask for donations from parents. It counts as volunteer hours and it’s 100% profit for us. We use it towards coaches bonuses and for their meals.

Wow - I feel like we already hit up the parents a ton - but maybe we could think about this. What constitutes a volunteer hour worth of chips or soda, water etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For chips, soda, water and even donuts, we ask for donations from parents. It counts as volunteer hours and it’s 100% profit for us. We use it towards coaches bonuses and for their meals.

Wow - I feel like we already hit up the parents a ton - but maybe we could think about this. What constitutes a volunteer hour worth of chips or soda, water etc?

We figure about $12-$15 an hour per volunteer hour. A dozen dunkin donuts is over $14 now. Or we ask for a box of the variety chips or goldfish from Costco. Some times we ask for 2 packs of gatorade, the larger individual bottles. We have families that are more than willing to buy their way out of working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For chips, soda, water and even donuts, we ask for donations from parents. It counts as volunteer hours and it’s 100% profit for us. We use it towards coaches bonuses and for their meals.

Wow - I feel like we already hit up the parents a ton - but maybe we could think about this. What constitutes a volunteer hour worth of chips or soda, water etc?

We figure about $12-$15 an hour per volunteer hour. A dozen dunkin donuts is over $14 now. Or we ask for a box of the variety chips or goldfish from Costco. Some times we ask for 2 packs of gatorade, the larger individual bottles. We have families that are more than willing to buy their way out of working.

Curious how big your team is. With ~150 swimmers, I don’t think we could staff a compliant swim meet if we had a mechanism for parents to opt out of deck jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For chips, soda, water and even donuts, we ask for donations from parents. It counts as volunteer hours and it’s 100% profit for us. We use it towards coaches bonuses and for their meals.

Wow - I feel like we already hit up the parents a ton - but maybe we could think about this. What constitutes a volunteer hour worth of chips or soda, water etc?

We figure about $12-$15 an hour per volunteer hour. A dozen dunkin donuts is over $14 now. Or we ask for a box of the variety chips or goldfish from Costco. Some times we ask for 2 packs of gatorade, the larger individual bottles. We have families that are more than willing to buy their way out of working.

Curious how big your team is. With ~150 swimmers, I don’t think we could staff a compliant swim meet if we had a mechanism for parents to opt out of deck jobs.

Our swim team provides the opt-out option if we pay $120 in addition to the swim team fees.

[Anonymous]

Are you talking about for a meet or your regular Swim/pool season?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking about for a meet or your regular Swim/pool season?

I was talking about the summer season. If parents could buy out of volunteering for the summer season, I don’t think we’d have enough timers, marshals, officials, etc. across all A and B meets.

[Anonymous]

We sell lots of candy, chips, cup noodles, donuts, and more candy.

We will sell a few bananas and slices of watermelon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fruit cups (prepared night before or day of and kept on ice) do the best for us in both morning and evening meets.

Mornings: burritos, donuts, bagels, smoothies, cup o’ Noodles (yes even when it’s hot outside), coffee.

Evenings: pizza, burgers, hot dogs, nachos, shaved ice.

Plus: water, sodas, chips, candy, etc.

Do you need a food license for all this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fruit cups (prepared night before or day of and kept on ice) do the best for us in both morning and evening meets.

Mornings: burritos, donuts, bagels, smoothies, cup o’ Noodles (yes even when it’s hot outside), coffee.

Evenings: pizza, burgers, hot dogs, nachos, shaved ice.

Plus: water, sodas, chips, candy, etc.

Do you need a food license for all this?

In Virginia, sports concessions are exempt:

7. Concession stands at youth athletic activities, if such stands are promoted or sponsored by a youth athletic association or by any charitable nonprofit organization or group thereof that has been recognized as being a part of the recreational program of the political subdivision where the association or organization is located by an ordinance or resolution of such political subdivision

[Anonymous]

Would love more fruit at swim meets!

Venmo/zelle options are helpful since we don’t always have cash

One pool we often swim against to always has warm breakfast sandwiches to order for A meets. They have a grill going. We love going to that pool.

[Anonymous]

One of most popular items at our Monday night B meets were snow cones. We had a line all night long - the hotter the night, the faster we sold out. We bought a machine several years ago and it paid for itself in less than one summer. Unfortunately, the parents who took over the concessions didn't want to deal with the machine so we haven't sold them the last couple of years.

Our biggest profit margins on Monday nights were hot dogs and burgers. BUT finding parents to grill was always difficult. We always sold out of Chick-Fil_A sandwiches but we only made about $1 per sandwich versus making $4 per burger. This was a couple of years ago so the prices have changed, but probably not by much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of most popular items at our Monday night B meets were snow cones. We had a line all night long - the hotter the night, the faster we sold out. We bought a machine several years ago and it paid for itself in less than one summer. Unfortunately, the parents who took over the concessions didn't want to deal with the machine so we haven't sold them the last couple of years.

Our biggest profit margins on Monday nights were hot dogs and burgers. BUT finding parents to grill was always difficult. We always sold out of Chick-Fil_A sandwiches but we only made about $1 per sandwich versus making $4 per burger. This was a couple of years ago so the prices have changed, but probably not by much.

How much do you charge for a burger? That’s a pretty good profit. I think we’d have a tough time selling them for much more than $4.