1. Youth Sports Concessions That Are Healthy And Profitable
Turning A Healthy Profit While Turning Out Healthier Kids
Lyle McCoon, Jr.
Athletics Director
Nicholasville/Jessamine County
Parks & Recreation

2. Obesity Among Our Children
In addition to the 16 percent of children and teens ages 6 to 19 who were overweight in , another 15 percent were considered at risk of becoming overweight (a BMI-for-age between the 85th and 95th percentiles).

3. The Situation At Home

4. The Situation At Home, cont.

5. The Situation At Home, cont.
“Our daughter is getting into this tendency of drinking large diet cokes. I'm not sure where she picked this up from but it's getting hard to get her to drink anything else. For all of you who don't realize it (mom) I'm just kidding—it's a medium!”
We start them younger and younger

6. The Situation At School
Among schools that allow students to purchase snack foods or beverages from vending machines or at the school store, canteen, or snack bar . . .
- 20% have fruits or vegetables available for purchase.
- 67% have 100% fruit juice available for purchase
- 95% have bottled water
available for purchase.
- 2% do not allow students
to purchase candy; high fat
snacks; or soft drinks,
sports drinks, or fruit drinks
that are not 100% juice
during school lunch periods.

7. The Situation At School, cont.
A nationwide survey of vending machines in middle schools and high schools found that 75% of the drinks and 85% of the snacks sold are of poor nutritional value
Of the drinks sold in the 13,650 vending-machine slots surveyed, 70% were sugary drinks such as soda, juice drinks with less than 50% juice, iced tea, and “sports” drinks. Of the sodas, only 14% were diet, and only 12% of the drinks available were water. Just 5% of drink options were milk but of those, most (57%) were high-fat whole or 2% milk.
Of the snack foods sold in the machines, candy (42%), chips (25%) and sweet baked goods (13%) accounted for 80% of the options. Of 9,723 snack slots in all the vending machines surveyed, only 26 slots contained fruits or vegetables.

8. The Situation At Our Concession Stands!?!

9. Your Concession Stand?

10. Your Concession Stand?

11. We Do A Great Job Fighting Obesity . . .

12. . . . While Contributing To It

13. Someone Needs To Take A Stand For Health!
Will It Be Parks & Recreation?

14. What Are Our Priorities?
We focus a great deal of time, care, and concern to getting good coaches (and rightly so), but ignore getting good food for our concession stands

15. Is Profit Our Main Concern?
- Should it be?
- But, to be
realistic,
it definitely is a concern of great importance

16. What One Parks Department Decided To Do About It
Nicholasville/Jessamine County Parks & Recreation’s Grand Concession Experiment Of

17. Our Particular History
Up until , we had contracted out our concession stand to private individuals on a profit percentage basis
This led to accounting abuses, unreported profits, and a loss of control over the concession stand
For the season, we tried to contract out a “healthy snack concession stand”
No one would agree to do it without
at least being able to sell soda
“I can’t make any money with that
menu without selling soda.”

18. Healthy Snack Ideas for Basketball Concessions
All of the following items are either sold individually or are sold individually wrapped (thus useful for a concession stand). Also, each item is sold in individual sizes. Some of the items require refrigeration, while others would require a microwave or a toaster.
Apples Bananas
Applesauce Fruit bowls
Snack cheeses
Bagels Mini-cereal boxes
Popcorn Granola bars
Cheez-its Rice cakes
Sunflower seeds (w/o shells)
Juice boxes Capri-sun
Smoothies
Hot dogs Lunchables
Slim Jims Beef Jerky
Jello Cups Pudding Cups
Raisins Fruit snacks
Yogurt String cheese
Cereal Bars Fruit Bars
Kudos Peanuts
Cracker sandwiches Goldfish crackers
Bottled Water Gatorade
Packaged lunch meat (like Carl Budding)
Chef Boyardee mini-meals
Fruit Roll-ups Pop tarts

19. Our Particular History, cont.
Since no one would agree to do it, we simply did not offer concessions
Our participants and families were not really happy about this, nor were our Parks board members (due to the loss of revenue)
We decided this past season to offer a healthy snack concession stand using our own paid staff (for accountability)
We hoped to break even
or, at best, to make a bit
of a profit

20. A Little Bit About Our Program
We had just under
300 basketball
participants
We had 35 teams
Our season lasted 11 weekends
Only 7 of those weekends were full weekends (both Saturday and Sunday) involving most of the teams
4 of those weekends involved only half (or fewer) of the teams

21. Our Particular Assets - We had a rather captive crowd
The facility that we use has no gas stations, convenience stores, or grocery stores within comfortable walking distance
- I had a supportive boss
- Last season (2004-
05) we did not offer
any concessions at all

22. Our Particular Liabilities
We do not have our own facility,
but must use a local elementary
school
We had a very small closet out
of which to operate
We had a small stand up refrigeration unit that had to fit in that closet
We had no toaster, microwave, or oven
The only plug-in device we used at the concession stand was a popcorn machine
The only youth sport we run is basketball

23. Our Particular Thinking
Our Underlying Philosophy: Since we offer basketball as a way of promoting activity and good health and as a way of combating obesity, we should not then turn and contribute to the problem by offering unhealthy concession choices
Our Underlying Premise: We
have a captive audience with
money to burn; they will eat
just about whatever we offer them

24. Our Actual Menu Bottled Water ($1.00)
Gatorade - Large ($1.50) & Small ($1.00)
Juice (only 100% juice varieties) ($1.00)
Capri Sun (This was discontinued in favor of 100% Juicy Juice) ($0.50)
Juicy Juice ($0.50)
Apples ($0.50)
Bananas ($0.50)
Raisins ($0.50)
Fruit Snacks (with Vitamin C) ($0.50)
Fruit Roll-ups ($0.50)
Fruit Bars ($0.75)
Granola Bars (most of which were low-fat) ($0.50)
Cracker Sandwiches ($0.50)
Goldfish ($0.75)
Cheez-Its ($0.75)
Cheese & Crackers ($0.50)
String Cheese (low-fat) ($0.50)
Trail Mix ($0.75)
Pretzels ($0.50)
Peanuts ($0.75)
Beef Jerky ($0.50)
Popcorn (made with the lowest fat oil we could find and very lightly salted) ($0.75)

25. Stories From The Front - A number of people
complained (of course) about
the lack of soda and/or chocolate
A number of people actually thanked us and complimented us for the choices
Some that came looking for chocolate bought granola bars or trail mix to get a bit of their fix

26. Stories From The Front, cont.
What we found, with drinks for example, is that people bought Gatorade (our biggest single seller, along with popcorn) first
When that ran out, they bought juice
When that ran out,
they bought water
You can limit the
choices to make
them as healthy as you want

27. Stories From The Front, cont.
Many who would definitely have eaten nachos, a Snickers, and a Coke, instead settled for a cracker sandwich, a fruit bar, and a bottled water
Some little kids learned that string cheese, bananas, and apple juice are just as yummy as chips, suckers, and soda
I felt a whole lot better after a 13
hour day having not eaten nachos
and hot dogs all day while washing
it down with Mt. Dew

28. End Of The Season Figures
Total Sales
$4,222.29
Total Costs
$1,242.61
Profit
$2,979.68
Labor Costs
$1,982.00
Grand Total Profit
$997.68

29. Bottom Line
We made approximately $1,000 in 9+ weeks selling healthy choices – without selling nachos, hot dogs, candy bars, chips, or soda!
Our labor costs were the
single biggest expense
we had, almost $2,000
With volunteer labor, we would have made $3,000

30. A Little Math That $3,000 came from approximately 300
participants (and their spectators) over approximately 10 weeks
That works out to $10 profit per participant from a healthy snack menu
It also works out to
about $1 profit per
participant per week

31. What That Could Mean To You
In a typical little league
scenario, your league has
around 500 participants
Your season lasts 16 weeks
Based on $1 per participant
per week, your league’s profit
would be $8,000
But the best part is that your profit came entirely from healthy choices at your concession stand

32. Ways We Could Have Increased Our Profit
Raised our prices
Bought in bigger bulk
(from commercial food
distributors)
Cut our worker’s income (currently $8.00 an hour)
Used volunteer labor
Expanded our menu to include items that can be microwaved or toasted

33. Join The Fight Ronald Reagan, in his 2nd Inaugural Address said, “If
not us, who? And if not now, when?”
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
The challenge for parks & recreation is to be a leader in this endeavor

34. The Leaders And The Best
If we, as a field, do not lead the way, who else will?
We ought to be the
vanguard; we ought
to be on the cutting
edge on this issue of
childhood obesity – not just talking about the problem or dragging our feet, but being part of the solution

35. Hope For The Future We hope to start to affect long term change
We hope to lead
some little kid to
ask mommy for
something healthy
that they tried and
liked at the concession
stand at parks & rec

36. My Challenge For You Try to implement a healthy snack concession stand
At a minimum, offer more healthy choices and fewer unhealthy ones
Try a completely healthy menu at least at one event or one concession stand
If you are worried about profit and possible lost revenue . . .
Start small
Look for grants and partners like the health department

37. My Challenge For You, cont.
In the words of Nike . . .
Just Do It!
Let parks and recreation be
a good example to other
organizations that work with youth
Don’t wait until the childhood obesity numbers get even higher before we act
Don’t wait, like the schools, for the government to come in and mandate change
Let us be the leaders and show, through our actions, that we truly do have the best interest of the kids in mind

38. Questions? Comments?