What to Stock in a Clubhouse Fridge

Most club fridges start with a sensible range and drift. Somebody buys a new flavour because it was on offer. A sponsor drops off a crate of energy drinks. By October the fridge holds twelve kinds of soda, three of which sell, and a box of chocolate that went out of date in August.

A smaller range sells better, wastes less, and is quicker to count. Here is how to pick it.

Start with five things

Almost every clubhouse fridge sells the same core:

• Cola, the normal one and the sugar-free one.
• Water, still or sparkling, whichever your members drink.
• One other soda, usually orange or lemon.
• One sports drink, if you have teams that train hard.
• One chocolate bar that everybody knows.

That is five or six products, and in most clubs it is the large majority of what leaves the fridge. Get these right, and never let them run out before the rest.

Add one thing at a time

Everything beyond the core should earn its place. Add one product, give it a month, and look at what it sold. If it sold, keep it. If it sat there, do not reorder it, however good the offer was.

The youth teams will ask for energy drinks. Decide as a club whether you want them in a fridge the under-twelves can open, and stick to it. An unattended fridge sells to whoever scans.

Mind the dates

Soft drinks keep for months. Chocolate keeps for less, and anything fresh keeps for days. Put new stock at the back and old stock at the front, every time, so the oldest goes first. It sounds obvious, and it is the step everyone skips when they are restocking in a hurry before a match.

Anything with a short date, like sandwiches or fruit, belongs on match days when someone is there, not in a fridge that might not be opened again until Tuesday.

Keep the price list short too

A short range means a short price list, and a short price list means members know the prices without reading it. Combine it with one price per category and nobody needs to check what a can costs.

Let the sales decide

The best stock list is the one written by what members actually buy. When every sale is recorded, you can see after a month that the lemon soda sold four and the cola sold sixty, and the reorder decides itself.

With Bippa every sale is recorded as it is paid, so the overview shows what sells and what does not, and the weekly count becomes a check rather than the only number you have. Trim the fridge to what moves, and the club's money stops sitting on a shelf.