Some people feel strongly that they don’t want their work “private labeled.” I once spoke to a struggling bakery. They were struggling only recently. Prior to that they would do commercial baking and supply most of their metro area with designer desserts- cakes, pies and pastries. But the owner got offended going into the XYZ Restaurant who advertised *her* baked goods as *THEIR* HOUSE SPECIAL WORLD RENOWNED DESSERT.
Now call me silly, call me stupid or call me a Frog, but this other restaurant was paying her bills. They weren’t going anywhere, they’d already tried to duplicate her product and couldn’t so they were solidly married to her product. But, an ego move occurred and she cut their account.
Cut off the nose to spite the face. Now she was struggling to meet her obligations.
Sadly those commercial accounts paid a lot of her bills and didn’t require constant marketing to draw in new customers.
When you come in to the Frog and are talking about startup I often want to discuss the prospect of baking commercial for others. Selling bread, brownies or other items to facilities that cannot provide the product can be great. Who cares if they relabel it? And suprisingly enough some facilities are happy to leave your label on the product.
I liken this to a good part of our business at the Frog. We’re not too proud to tell you that a lot of other dealers shop with us. Our prices at One Fat Frog Foodservice and Restaurant Equipment to end-users are low enough they don’t even buy discounted… they just get the equipment and pass on the warranty, etc to their clients. It was funny at first when it began, now it’s just a dynamic of the business. The first time One Fat Frog took offense when someone bought a piece of equipment from us and resold it for another $1000- and then we said, well that’s not our business. Our business is selling and these folks sold for us. So, why not embrace it?
One Fat Frog Restaurant Equipment often has consultants, chefs, and other restaurant equipment and supply companies ship equipment from us. Why not? We have the facilities, technicians and bulk power that they don’t.
They’re great customers too!
On a side note we saw a customer bought a piece of equipment from us for $9k… then tried to sell it for $15k… unsure if they made that sale… but it does prove there’s huge savings at the frog!