What's your favourite sandwich filling? Opening a shop soon

[48k]

There's a sarnie shop near me which seems to do well, aiming slightly up market with the fillings and a "roast of the day", "cake of the day" etc. Called Eat Your Heart Out but known colloquially as eat your wallet out because of the prices. If you order before 11 they will deliver which is probably a big slice of income for them as their shop is situated near a lot of industrial/business estates.

[ApOrbital]

I used that all the time when i was at mercedes benz cracking food.

[ApOrbital]

It use to be a lot smaller than that.

[Joey Ramone]

AlexC1981 said:

I'm with Blown2CV here. I would never buy a bacon sandwich from a shop as it will inevitably be rubbish compared to home-made.

You can keep your overpowering chewy chorizo though. Yuk

There's a place in Lechlade that does such a good bacon sandwich on Sourdough that I regularly drive 10 miles to eat one.

[rambo19]

Corned beef and pickle.

[AlexC1981]

Thanks to this thread my lunch yesterday consisted of dry cured bacon, fried tomatoes and melted mozzarella in warm paninis with a little black pepper.

[Robertj21a]

Blown2CV said:

i can see i am pissing in the wind here, and all of you are aiming at the "incapable of making a sandwich" market when in fact the real money is in the "willing to spend money to buy something you can't just fking make at home" market.

I actually agree with you that the real money is in creating something that most people wouldn't bother with at home - I would be one of those customers. Unfortunately, it only works if you have a good volume of such customers - and many places won't achieve the necessary numbers.

[Japveesix]

Peanut butter & marmite. Both pieces of bread buttered and thick marmite on one side with decent crunchy peanut butter on the other. Charge £5 at least for the novelty and the profit margins will be huge.

[Blown2CV]

Robertj21a said:

Blown2CV said:

i can see i am pissing in the wind here, and all of you are aiming at the "incapable of making a sandwich" market when in fact the real money is in the "willing to spend money to buy something you can't just fking make at home" market.

I actually agree with you that the real money is in creating something that most people wouldn't bother with at home - I would be one of those customers. Unfortunately, it only works if you have a good volume of such customers - and many places won't achieve the necessary numbers.

well obviously, that's what i mean by knowing your market. It entirely depends where you want to base it, but if it was me the biggest factor of where to base it would be where i could make the most money. There's nothing special about sandwiches when it comes to this stuff' it's just like any other shop. I've never said it would be a good idea to open a posh sandwich shop in slough, or indeed just anywhere. I just don't get the 'race to the bottom' mentality with some of the posters on here. The biggest mistake people make in business is assuming everyone else is like them.

[Murph7355]

Blown2CV said:

fry it down, crisp it off... anyway

And this, IMO, is where your favourite starts to cause issues...

- halloumi : needs to be cooked off to be properly good. I grill it with olive oil. And you cannot do this at the beginning of the day and expect it to last all day. To be at its best it needs to be freshly done.
- chorizo : needs to be fried off. Can be done a little in advance but not hours.
- mushroom, : for me would need to be cooked with some herbs. Could be done in advance (start of the day for use that day)
- fennel : I'm not a fan, but if I had to eat it, it would need cooking, pref. freshly charred
- tomato : OK, straightforward. Assuming you're just talking fresh tom's rather than sun-blushed (which would work better but cost more)
- on sourdough : so you're adding another bread choice into the mix that might not be usable for many more fillings

All the above means more prep' time per sandwich. And more cost in terms of the basic ingredients. You *need* to charge 6 quid for it and I'm far from convinced the margin would be suitably larger.

FWIW I like sandwiches with the sort of ingredients you note. At a cafe I go to once a week it would be the sort of thing I'd choose. They do this sort of food well, have a bakery on site etc etc. And yet you know what I see them selling far more of? Sausage rolls, salad and quiche (and they do a fantastic healthy KFC-esque wrap).

There are plenty of hipster streets around, but even they are unlikely to survive serving the sort of stuff you noted as their bread and butter (sic )...

In the shop where you get said upmarket sandwich, what is their most profitable sandwich on a unit basis? And what is their most profitable line overall?

[Short Grain]

The Real Sandwich Company, Hessle, just outside of Hull, (yeah, I know, get the Hull insults in now)

Best Sausage, Bacon, sarnies going in the area as far as I'm concerned, and not expensive. The Full Monty breakfast sarnie is just that, Belly Busting, extra large bun, fills you up all day. Must be doing OK, they have 4 - 6 staff on all day, up to 2 o'clock only, and a dedicated del'y driver at both branches! Fresh ingredients daily. Check out the menu on the website. The specials are great as well, some good combinations worth trying!

www.therealsandwichcompany.com

Hungry Now. first Dibble's pics, now thinking about these!

[Trabi601]

The thing to note about that is there are only 3 bread options (plus a wrap, which is a cheap and long shelf life option), it's mostly very basic and staple ingredients which can be sourced in bulk from a cash & carry (so no cocking about with home made, organic, dairy-free coleslaw etc) - and, most importantly, it's priced at the same price as your local Greggs.

However, margins are going to be very slim. You may scrape national average wage from such a business - but you'll not be buying a Ferrari.

[battered]

Trabi601 said:

However, margins are going to be very slim. You may scrape national average wage from such a business - but you'll not be buying a Ferrari.

I wouldn't be so sure. A friend of mine owns a butty shop near Leeds, she bought a recent Boxster on a whim a few years back and just sold a very nice house in a desirable outer suburb. Times are *a little* less favourable right now but she's hardly on her uppers. That's on one shop, not a chain.

[Blown2CV]

Trabi601 said:

The thing to note about that is there are only 3 bread options (plus a wrap, which is a cheap and long shelf life option), it's mostly very basic and staple ingredients which can be sourced in bulk from a cash & carry (so no cocking about with home made, organic, dairy-free coleslaw etc) - and, most importantly, it's priced at the same price as your local Greggs.

However, margins are going to be very slim. You may scrape national average wage from such a business - but you'll not be buying a Ferrari.

i despair.

[Trabi601]

Blown2CV said:

i despair.

Out of interest, have you ever sold sandwiches, made sandwiches on a commercial basis or done anything in the food on the move business other than buy from a shop?

I'm talking from a position of having made sandwiches / baguettes (including baking both scratch made and part-baked baguettes), and have worked in the food retailing business for most of my career - even now, whilst I work for an oil company, I'm in the retail end of the business where everyone is selling some kind of sandwich - from cheap wholesaler sandwiches through more quality bought in offers to hand making on the premises. Without fail, everyone making on site is making the simple, basic sandwiches as they are the only ones which sell in enough volume to make it worthwhile.

[Blown2CV]

Trabi601 said:

Blown2CV said:

i despair.

Out of interest, have you ever sold sandwiches, made sandwiches on a commercial basis or done anything in the food on the move business other than buy from a shop?

I'm talking from a position of having made sandwiches / baguettes (including baking both scratch made and part-baked baguettes), and have worked in the food retailing business for most of my career - even now, whilst I work for an oil company, I'm in the retail end of the business where everyone is selling some kind of sandwich - from cheap wholesaler sandwiches through more quality bought in offers to hand making on the premises. Without fail, everyone making on site is making the simple, basic sandwiches as they are the only ones which sell in enough volume to make it worthwhile.

no never but the stuff i am saying is not rocket science and nor is it sandwich-specific in some way. There is nothing inherent in any business that says you have to be prepared before you've even put pen to paper to make fk all money and be on your arse. If there was such an industry, then for fks sake choose a different one for starting a business. Why do we have this idea that we have to sell cheap sandwiches just because more people want them? That's not how you make money unless you scale up to factory level output. If it's a small shop, you make money in margin. You make margin with a premium product, carefully located. I can only assume that OP wants to start a business to make money and work for himself, not as some kind of selfless commitment to charity work. To be fair he asked for sandwich filling advice, and what he got was a hundred people saying things they like to eat NOT things they'd be willing to spend money on, and nor on a regular basis. If you set out to be nothing but the cheapest, you may as well not fking bother. If you aren't doing anything different to the next man, then you're maximising your competitors. Do something different, do it in a way that suggests you give a st about the quality of the product and you can charge decent money and make a business out of it. No offence but it sounds like even though you've done it, you are now doing something else which suggests you failed?

[Trabi601]

I didn't fail - not my business, but I've worked up from junior roles to regional roles.

Multi billion pound turnover businesses struggle to make hand made sandwiches work profitably - and multi billion pound turnover businesses have learned that 'niche' means minimal or negative margins.

So, I personally haven't failed - and neither have the businesses I've worked for. But they did learn that people will not, in enough numbers, pay for expensive sandwiches!

It's all very well talking about margin - but it's a balance between percentage and cash margin. Too many people in business focus on percentages and forget that 100% of nothing is nothing. Whilst 10% of £100 is £10 in the bank.

I'm not saying it won't work - what I am saying is that artisan, sourdough, fennel, hand made organic coleslaw, air cured Wilshire ham from outdoor reared organic pigs etc., is unlikely to appeal to most of the lunch trade - maybe on pay day as a treat, but this business is all about return custom, not treats.

[Blown2CV]

for starters we aren't talking about multi-billion businesses who have very different challenges and needs. We are not trying to industrialise anything. People come back for good things, not for cheap things - why would anyone return for a st arse ham butty for 50p? What's the point in selling 100 sandwiches a day where you make 2p per sandwich and have to pay for 10 staff to deal with the fleeting peak in business? You're saying 0% of £10 is still zero, but you don't set yourself up to achieve zero, just like you don't set yourself up to make fk all margin per unit. You're talking about percentages but what you're really saying is know your market. AGAIN, i am not saying to locate this business in a place where no-one wants nice things. Believe me i understand that there are a far greater number of sthole places in the UK than nice ones. Place the business where the market you want is. Want the market where the profit is. I don't agree with you that overall most people will not pay. I am absolutely confident however that if you put a nice shop in a st town then no-one will pay, granted. At no point have i ever said to put a premium business in a st place.

[rufmeister]

48k said:

There's a sarnie shop near me which seems to do well, aiming slightly up market with the fillings and a "roast of the day", "cake of the day" etc. Called Eat Your Heart Out but known colloquially as eat your wallet out because of the prices. If you order before 11 they will deliver which is probably a big slice of income for them as their shop is situated near a lot of industrial/business estates.

Quality sandwich shop.

Used to live on Willen and treat myself to an Eat Your Heart Out on my days off during the week. Was always packed with people spending fortunes.

Great selection, nothing too flash, but a not your average ham + cheese, and never even looked at the price, as it was good food.

They are located bang next to Mercedes Benz UK Head Office, and 1/2 a mile from VW UK, so not filled with mechanics and truckers, professional types.

[ZedLeg]

I'm glad this thread got resurrected. I love seeing my arguments repeated by other people .