Food services raises prices in vending machines
By HELENA PAYNE
Assistant News Editor
Students might have noticed that purchasing a caffeinated drink for late study sessions or bottled water for lectures is more expensive now that beverage prices have risen in campus vending machines.
During late November and early December, the cash operations group of Notre Dame Food Services decided to raise prices of beverages in order to offset increased costs of managing the vending machines.
"Different costs have continued to escalate and that margin has slowly gone down," said Dean Winter, operation manager of vending services. "It was necessary to do something about it."
At the beginning of the year, vending services, which operates under Food Services, undertook the process of changing the prices in the University's approximately 220 beverage machines and more vending machines containing both food and beverage.
All prices of 20-ounce bottles of beverages changed from $1 to $1.25 and 12-ounce cans from $.65 to $.75.
Winter said the new prices are more attractive to customers because of the ease of putting quarters into the machine instead of smaller coins.
"When you get into the prices in between a dollar and a dollar and a quarter — it's the psychology of the price," said Winter.
He said he and others wanted to keep the price as simple for the customers as it was when it was a dollar, in the case of the former price of 20-ounce beverages. Winter said he also took a realistic approach and chose a price that would safeguard against any immediate changes in the price.
"Our number one criteria is [to provide] convenience," said Winter. "If I went to an intermediate price [higher than a dollar but lower than $1.25] then there would have to be a price raise quicker than there would if I went to a dollar and a quarter."
So far, Winter said he has only heard from two or three students who were curious to find out about the price changes.
"Most of them have been very understanding," said Winter.
As of now, Winter said he doesn't foresee any immediate changes in the vending machine prices.
Comparing the changes in vending machine prices to the recent fluctuation in gas prices, Winter said he wouldn't completely rule out an increase in the future.
"I can see [the current prices remaining] a number of years, but there are so many things that are out of our control when it comes to cost," said Winter. "We're trying to maintain a decent margin."
All News Stories for Wednesday, January 30, 2002
