Converting Manufacturing Waste into Profits

     Do you currently have excess waste that you can turn into profits? I recently helped a company that was donating their unused product to a soup kitchen. Most accountants or CPA's will tell you to throw it out and to collect the tax write off for this. I am aware that if someone gets sick or has a allergic reaction to your donated product, this could cause all types of problems for you. I was donating my unused portions to soup kitchens until people started asking me what ingredients I used. When I first got into the business, about 1 person a month would ask me about ingredients because of allergies. When I sold my business, around 4 or 5 people a day would ask. The increase in people concerned about allergies was growing at an exponential rate. This rate was almost unfathomable at which it was growing. I became extremely nervous donating any of my foods that were not properly labeled. The foods that are donated to soup kitchens normally do not have the full set of labels on them. This would actually cost the merchant more money to make the donation. Many times merchants just pile the food into boxes or containers and take it for the drop off. It is possible that you are currently not utilizing all of your product in the most efficient way. I know this from personal experience. I would sell several different sizes and still would have waste leftover at the end of the day. If you can somehow harness this waste and turn it into profits you can not only increase your revenue, you change the dynamics of your products.

Carry case full of Munchkins

     Look at donut holes at Dunkin Donuts. These donut holes are simply the center of the donut. They would just be regenerated back into the dough for the next batch. By converting these into donut holes or munchkins, they can charge slightly more per pound and gain a great new product that people love.

Look at all the flavors represented
in the Munchkin kit now.

  This is a simple concept but consider if you are making anything that has waste, you can be doing the same in some capacity. Different size portions, different applications, and a different type of edible consumable is exactly what the consumer is after. Think about changing the game of how your product is manufactured or consumed. A great product to look at is cheese sticks. These are in a new type of package that allows the consumer to take with them. Now people can consume these on their own as snacks. When I was a kid, we could eat cheese in the squares out of the fridge. We really wouldn't take these with us anywhere because they would not keep well, they were fragile, and they would get hot. Now because of new packaging, they go everywhere with the new generation and are found in every corner of the world.

New cheese strings that can
travel everywhere.

Old school cheese that we had
as kids in the fridge.