Talking, socializing and studying requires a lot of energy from our systems and in some cases can be quite draining! We all have our own unique preferences when it comes to meals. A lot of us can benefit from 3-5 meals every 3-4 hours to spread your energy intake throughout the day and maintain regular blood sugar levels (Suikki 2021).

The dialogue sessions in our program last four hours and we often have one 10-20minute break in the middle. During these breaks there is usually a couple of people rushing to the local Lidl grocery store. A round trip to the Lidl is around 300 meters and unless you run, you won’t have enough time to eat whatever you bought. We had a problem which needed a solution.

Our team Saawa had come up with the idea of a vending machine a long time ago, but back then we came to the conclusion that vending machine businesses require a considerable amount of initial investment. We didn’t have any money, so the idea was dismissed. Now, we are not filthy rich, but we do own a professional-grade fridge that our team inherited trough an acquisition of a famous and traditional summer café in the center of Tampere.

The fridge was stored in the premises of a long-time business partner of our trough the autumn and winter, but due to the company relocating, my trusted movers helped me with moving the fridge to the Finlayson Campus. The Fridge fits nicely in 5^th floor TeamSpace, in which it blends into the clutter and chatter and customers can access it any time, because TeamSpace can’t be reserved for private use. We let the fridge stay put for some days after the move before plugging it in, to make sure the refrigerant has settled. After that I gave it a good scrubbing.

Me and another Saawan made a trip to our local Kesko food wholesale store in Nekala because of another reason, but because we already were there, we decided to buy some things that we thought would have selling potential. First products we chose were four types of drinks, 2 types of healthy snacks and 4 types of sweet snacks

We didn’t base the pricing on anything else than vibes and it was a calculated risk. We didn’t want to spend many hours on a project that might not work at all. We knew that in case the snack fridge was interesting enough, we could take time to make proper plans and calculations later to save time and be more efficient.

After publishing the project in Teams and listening to people’s opinions about the snack fridge we got data about what products people enjoyed and what other expectations and wishes were. The data shows that our choice of energy drink was not the best and we need to improve on that for the next round of products

We decided that from this point on I had majority of the responsibility of the project, meaning that it will no longer be a project of Jenna and I together. It will still definitely be a group project with the whole Saawa and our community.

The first batch of snacks cost us 68,12€ before tax and the retail value according to our own pricing is 146,3€ which makes the net profit 78,08€ and profit margin 53%.

List of references:

Suikki, T. 2021. Ateriarytmin kulmakivet. Released on 17.06.2019. Updated on 07.06.2021. Read on 27.4.2022. https://sydan.fi/fakta/ateriarytmin-kulmakivet/