3-Packs

All winter I've been insisting that my business hasn't been hurt at all by the lousy economy, but that's not entirely true. My sales at the markets are comparable--if not better--than they were a year ago, but different items are selling well.

In addition to the hot, read to eat food that we prepare, we also sell take-home packs of tamales, three to a pack. We sell them for $8 (a single tamale, hot and ready, costs $3.50.) Over the years we've sold anywhere from 3 or 4 packs to 15 or 20 packs at any given market. Last winter at the U District we were selling an average of 30 packs a week. That's more packs than I'd ever sold at any market.

This year we're selling a lot fewer. Though each tamale in the pack is cheaper than the ones we sell ready to eat, the packs still feel expensive to many customers. They are, in fact, the most pricey item we sell.

They do freeze well, so when we have some leftover, we freeze them so we'll have them for emergencies. Occasionally we run a special and clean out the freezer, selling the packs for $5 each. We've been selling 45 packs in a day when we do this, and it makes me wonder whether I should just lower the price overall. I do make some money selling them at that price, but not nearly as much as at full price.

I've struggled with this, and decided to keep the price where it is, and run specials every month or so. I don't want folks to get too used to the lower price, because then it won't seem worth it to them when we raise the price again. And over the summer we sometimes struggle to produce enough to meet demand, so I don't want to be selling them at a reduced price when I don't have enough to sell at full price. This makes me feel a bit like a cut throat capitalist, but my mother always tells me I need to move more in that direction, so maybe it's a start.