grrr i'm boycotting arbys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vi edit]

You're arguing over a fvcking arby's sauce packet. GET A LIFE

I'm stuck in a hotel room(somebody else has the car) 850 miles from home actually going over this exact problem 10-12 hours a day for 5 days.

THIS IS MY LIFE! (For the time being anyway)

 

[Angrymarshmello]

I was talking to gar598. You're cool though (I argued for the same position as you did in the McDonalds barbecue sauce threads) Some people just don't understand.

 

[tk149]

I have to agree with the original poster on this issue.

I love Arby's, but most of the reason is because I LOVE Arby's Sauce and Horsey Sauce. I know it's unhealthy, disgusting to look at, and messy, but if my Arby's sandwich isn't oozing gobs of sauce, it just doesn't taste right. In fact, I don't think the roast beef tastes very good at all without the sauce.

In other words, I think Arby's roast beef sandwiches are a unique product. They are different from hot dogs, hamburgers, and fish. If I want a cheap hamburger or fish filet, I go to McD's or BK or half a zillion other places. If I want a cheap roast beef sandwich smothered in Arby's and Horsey Sauce, my only choice is Arby's.

So if Arby's (or at least the only Arby's in my area) were to "change" the taste of their sandwich (by limiting sauce) and make it less appealing, I would be less inclined to buy one (or two or three or five for $5). In fact, I probably would quit buying Arby's at all.

On the other hand, if Arby's raised it's sandwich price slightly ($0.05) and gave me 2-3 packets of Arby's sauce and 2 packets of Horsey Sauce per sandwich, I'd be a happy clam.

Anyway, my point is that, at least for me, Arby's has a niche market and can charge more to cover the cost of extra sauce.

So, yeah, charge a little more, keep the customer happy, and retain the same profit margin.

BTW, did I mention that I LOVE Arby's Sauce and Horsey Sauce?

Geez, I'm hungry now.

 

[gar598]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I was talking to gar598. You're cool though (I argued for the same position as you did in the McDonalds barbecue sauce threads) Some people just don't understand.

How about you getting a life? It's not as if you're adding any great insight but you telling me to "get a life". Maybe you need to start eating your own words.

It's not about the packets of arbys sauce (if you would have read over the entire thread, just maybe you could have realized that). It's the big picture - it's about good customer service and it all revolves around the old adage of the customer always being right.

You, my friend, need to get a life.

 

[dolph]

bart: "i'm so hungry i could eat at arby's!"

i've been boycotting arby's for about 10 years so far, with no plans to return until i get as desperate as the above quote.

 

[udonoogen]

mmmmmmm arbys

 

[Kerouactivist]

i could never boycott Arby's they have the best roast beef side of my ex-girlfirend

 

[AvesPKS]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
We buy roast beef at $57 for 40 pounds. Post cooking shrinkage and scrap takes away 7% of that 40 pounds, so you are down to 37.2 pounds. Take that $57 and devide it by 37.2 and you are looking at about $1.50 per pound.

A beef 'n cheddar has 8oz of beef so you have a beef cost of $.75.
The bun is around $.12 for the onion roll.
Figure another $.02 or $.03 for the cheddar sauce, the arbys sauce that they already put on there, and the wrapper.
Now put in another $.02 for extra packet.

That's $.95 in food costs alone. Now factor in labor, operating expenses, property, and above store expenses and you are really starting to add things up.

That sandwhich cost you $1.66, it may have cost us $1.50 to put it together. We're only making $.15 or cents on the sandwich.

Fast food industry is all about quantity. The more you sell, the more you make per sandwich, but, on the other hand, the more freebee's you give out, the harder it is to make money.

Most people really have no concept of the costs associated with running a quick serve business. It's just not money spent on food costs, there are literally hundreds of other variables that go into the final price of that sandwich.

It's not uncommon for a restuarant to have 200 or 300 transactions a day. If every one of those transactions takes an extra $.02 packet of sauce, that's $6 a day, $186 a month, $2232 a year. We've got 18 stores, if you take that $2232 a year x 18, that's $40,176 dollars a year my company is loosing just by giving away an extra packet of sauce.

I don't care what you think, or who you are, $40,000 a year is not a small amount of money.

Hehe...Arby's needs to start selling pizza. At the pizza place I work at on and off, a large plain pizza costs $10.66. The dough (which we make ourselves) costs maybe $.25, the sauce (also made fresh), a nickel, and the cheese (which is the most expensive), probably $1.50. That's roughly a cost of $2.00 per pizza. And then when you add toppings at a dollar fifty a pop (and we're talking about pepperoni and green peppers here, not exactly that expensive), it goes up. Now I realize that Arby's obviously operates on a much smaller profit margin than the place I am describing, and Arby's probably sells a larger volume than the place I'm describing. Just thought I'd add my two cents.

 

[Raincity]

It cost very much more in marketing dollars to regain the customers trust in the franchise than the savings from the enforcment of such stupid policies. The increased cost in marketing will be passed on the store owners in increased monthy franchise fees. Then on to the consumer. Sitting around running the numbers on unit production costs are useless when the store throughput is low.


Rain

 

[optimistic]

After that, you should have parked, walked into the store and stuff your pockcets with condiments from their condiment bar the storm out laughing!

That's what I would have done.

 

[gar598]

Originally posted by: optimistic
After that, you should have parked, walked into the store and stuff your pockcets with condiments from their condiment bar the storm out laughing!

That's what I would have done.

Note: they don't have a condiment bar - just the pump.

 

[MaxDepth]

I've boycotted Arby's since 1990. I got food poisoning from a mushroom burger. (that had been sitting out all day, I've been told)

Only a stomach virus has made me feel worse than that.
:disgust:

 

[MichaelD]

They have the 5 for $5 at my local Arby's but it's kind of BS; it's actually 5 for $5.99 plus tax. So, it's really $6.48. Kinda misleading, yeah?

 

[Yossarian]

My new policy after reading this fascinating thread is to refuse any and all condiment packets, and demand $0.02 off the cost of each sammich.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: PipBoy
My new policy after reading this fascinating thread is to refuse any and all condiment packets, and demand $0.02 off the cost of each sammich.

 

[sharkeeper]

If Arby's gave away unlimited packets don't you think they would suffer from excessive packet loss?

Cheers!

 

[dirtboy]

To make up for your boycott, I will start eating at Arby's twice as often!

 

[Jzero]

Vi, I must dispute your information:

We buy roast beef at $57 for 40 pounds. Post cooking shrinkage and scrap takes away 7% of that 40 pounds, so you are down to 37.2 pounds. Take that $57 and devide it by 37.2 and you are looking at about $1.50 per pound.

Since the weights are *always* given BEFORE cooking, that 7% doesn't count. 8oz of meat is thrown on the grill to make a sandwich. Maybe only 7.4oz ends up in the actual sandwich, but you don't count that as a loss. You're selling an 8oz precooked sandwich.
Thus, the meet truly costs $1.43/lb.

A beef 'n cheddar has 8oz of beef so you have a beef cost of $.75.
The bun is around $.12 for the onion roll.
Figure another $.02 or $.03 for the cheddar sauce, the arbys sauce that they already put on there, and the wrapper.
Now put in another $.02 for extra packet.

That's $.95 in food costs alone. Now factor in labor, operating expenses, property, and above store expenses and you are really starting to add things up.

According to Arby's own website, the Beef N' Cheddar is 5.2oz, and that INCLUDES meat, cheese, sauce, roll and oil. I have an 8-pack of rolls. They weight 1.9 oz each.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that weight, however is JUST the meat. Assuming that's the cooked weight, you started with 5.6oz of meat, or $.50 worth of meat. + .20 for the others you mentioned gives you $.70 in food costs, but I suspect the number is much lower than that.
Heck, even if I give you the meat for $1.50/lb, it's still $.53 for the meat, so $.73 in food costs.

So now you're making $.37 on the sandwich....

I don't care what you think, or who you are, $40,000 a year is not a small amount of money.

Actually, if you're running 18 successful franchises, $40k is a drop in the bucket. $.02 per packet is easily made up by people buying "value meals" and larger drinks and other high-profit margin items.

 

[vi edit]

Jzero, the 40 pounds is (4) 10 pound frozen roasts. The 7% is accounted loss for post roasting waste.

I was off on the beef 'n cheddar, but so were you. I thought it was 8oz of beef, but it's actually ~4 oz. The total weight is 6.9 ounces, not 5.2 as you listed. The beef is actually put on a scale after cooking, and weighed right before it is put on the bun.

So, my numbers were a little off. I was thinking the Big Mo was a full pound, and the Beef 'n cheddar was half a pound. My error.

As for $40,000, it IS a significant amount of money. It's the cost of a general manager. It's the cost of broadband for every store, for two full years. It's the subscription cost of my back office software for the entire company for two years. It's the cost of 6 part time crew members for an entire year.

It's not chump change.

My whole point of rallying in this thread isn't to advocate this policy and to give that cashier a pat on the back. I'm in here to show some people that little things add up. If you aren't in the QSR business, then you really can't comprehend all the invisible costs that go into cost of food production. I do work in this industry, and do help with the accounting and inventory management of it. Fast food places do not make anywhere near as much money on food as people think that they do.

If we want to look at cheap food costs and absurb profit margins, take a look at a Krispy Kreme. Now THERE'S a money making machine.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Jzero, the 40 pounds is (4) 10 pound frozen roasts. The 7% is accounted loss for post roasting waste.

The meat is precooked, then?

I was off on the beef 'n cheddar, but so were you. I thought it was 8oz of beef, but it's actually ~4 oz. The total weight is 6.9 ounces, not 5.2 as you listed. The beef is actually put on a scale after cooking, and weighed right before it is put on the bun.

HAHA! CRAP! I looked at the wrong damn sandwich. I did it more just to prove to myself that I could still do that kind of math, anyway. Either way, the profit margin on those sandwiches is wider than previously stated.

As for $40,000, it IS a significant amount of money. It's the cost of a general manager. It's the cost of broadband for every store, for two full years. It's the subscription cost of my back office software for the entire company for two years. It's the cost of 6 part time crew members for an entire year.

It's not chump change.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I suppose. When you have sodas, value meals and other high-profit items, you can easily overcome that gap. It may not be chump change to one person, or even one franchise, but we are talking 18 franchises! It's a drop in the bucket. If the owner was losing that much money on sauce packets that it was significantly impacting the bottom line, they'd be charging you for them just like the bbq sauce. You can't focus solely on one money-loser and claim you're losing $40k/year--you have to look at the big picture. How much profit does 18 Arby's franchises pull per year? Add $40k to find out how much they would have made.
I doubt it is very significant.

Edit: I do see your point that a seemingly little cost can amount to thousands of dollars when spread enterprise-wide, but I guess my point is that it goes both ways, and a few cents' extra revenue elsewhere can also amount to thousands of dollars enterprise-wide.

 

[vi edit]

How much profit does 18 Arby's franchises pull per year? Add $40k to find out how much they would have made.

I wish I could answer that, to really drive home the point, but alas, I've already disclosed more info than I probably should have. About all that I think I feel comfortable saying is that $40,000 is dangerously close to what a poor performing store makes in a year.

I'll tell you this - since we've gained the franchise rights to Krispy Kreme, we've pretty much all energy into them instead of the Arby's. The profit margin is that much better on them.

 

[transluko]

If you take the price of a small soda = ~1.19
Subtract the price of the soda = ~.19
You come out with a cup that costs $1.00

At some places when people ask for water they get a free $1.00 cup.
My question is, what are the food preparation places doing about this?

Are there any stories about places trying to charge for a paper cup?

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: transluko
If you take the price of a small soda = ~1.19
Subtract the price of the soda = ~.19
You come out with a cup that costs $1.00

At some places when people ask for water they get a free $1.00 cup.
My question is, what are the food preparation places doing about this?

Are there any stories about places trying to charge for a paper cup?

McDonald's used to charge $.10 for ice water. Don't know if they do any more. We don't charge for ice water, although I'd have no problems paying $.25 for it.

 

[vi edit]

Oh, forgot about this.

When I was in high school I worked for a movie theatre. We were a small one screen theatre that only charged $1.50 for movies(this was in '94-'96). Our manager based our inventory and our nightly balance based upon soda cup and popcorn bucket counts since we didn't have any sort of electronic tracking.

So, say we counted how many popcorn tubs we had before we opened, and then recounted after we were done. Same thing for candy and soda cups.

If we had a difference of 50 small popcorn tubs, we'd take 50 x $1.25 and add in the tax.
Same thing for soda and candy.

You add everything up, and then compare it to the money that you took in. That's how we balanced the safe at the end of the night.

Here was the kicker though - since we figured profit by cup/tub, if somebody just wanted a tub or a cup, we had to charge them the full price of what it would cost for a full bucket of popcorn or cup of soda.

People weren't really enthused when they were told that they had to pay $1.86 for an empty 32 ounce cup

 

[transluko]

heh, that's one way to not give out too many cups.

My school started charging $.05 for a cup with water. It was definetelly worth it for students, but not for them. They gave up on it within a half a year.

So I guess they need to charge way over the price of a cup or nothing at all. Charging nothing seems like a better choice for consumer relations.