Fitness Merchandising Food

Selling Food in the Gym – Providing Recovery

We’ve talked about finding a great fitness merchandising vendor, selling equipment for better performance and providing apparel for your members to look good while hitting the WOD. Now, lets talk a little bit about recovery and selling food in the gym.

Nutrition is imperative to fueling athletic recovery, with the primary window ending just 30 minutes after the workout, which is why it is the perfect product to stock and market at your box. Recovery nutrition helps rebuild muscle and improve glycogen resynthesis rates.

As we mentioned in part one, there are three major products you can sell for recovery (or even pre-workout nutrition): protein mix, coconut water and food options, so lets break it down.

Protein Mixes (there are a million supplement companies out there, we’re mentioning the ones with a strong presence in the fitness community)

  • SFH – These guys are popular among the fitness crowd and offer a lot of options in terms of pre and post workout nutrition as well as flavors.These guys also sell boxes of single serving pouches ($30 for 10 pouches), which is perfect for athletes who want easy convenience, they can just grab one of these and a bottle of coconut water, pour, shake and serve! It means athletes don’t need to carry around huge packages in their gym bags either – which is perfect from a marketing perspective.
  • Progenex – Another loved company in the community who also offer great deals, like a discount code and profit sharing. They also have boxes of individual servings at the same cost as SFH.

There is not a huge difference between these companies, in fact, stocking both so your members can choose what they like best is also a great option. Do some research, order different brands and find out what brand you like the best in terms of taste, texture, effectiveness and nutrition – then stock that brand!

Contact the company once you decide on one to see if you can get any bulk discounts.

Coconut Water

  • Vita Coco – About $20 for a pack of 12 11 ounce containers. Vita Coco made the top of our list because they do a lot of outreach with the fitness community and you can contact them to show up at your next event and hand out free product!!
  • ZICO – $18 for a pack of 12 11 ounce containers
  • O.N.E. – $21 for a pack of 12 11 ounce containers, and free shipping kicks in if you order 2 boxes or more, making them $1.75 for you.

Check around with your athletes to see if they have a favorite brand that they would want you to stock – and again, contact the companies to see if you can get bulk discounts. If you’re selling food in your gym, it’s a good idea to make sure your athletes want to buy it first.

Food

  • Steve’s Original – The makers of Paleo Kits, Paleo Crunch, Paleo Crunch Bars, dried fruit packs and beef jerky – best of all, proceeds go to Steve’s Club, an organization that works with under priveledged kids!
  • Lara Bars – These are delicious and you can ask for them to show up at your events, often they will even drop of large bags of bite sized samplers to hand out!

Up next, pricing your merchandise!

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