[Noisebridge-discuss] Club Matte for Noisebridge

Mitch Altman maltman23 at hotmail.com
Sat Mar 28 20:03:11 UTC 2009


I'd say we're doing well with drinks.  :)

 

 

You feel like getting more?

 

 

Mitch.

 


 

 


Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:54:00 -0700
Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Club Matte for Noisebridge
From: avniow at gmail.com
To: maltman23 at hotmail.com
CC: longobord at gmail.com; matt at peterson.org; noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net

We spent about $175 total on drinks last time so that's a 3x profit margin. Definitely paid for itself this time.


Which reminds me we're running out again. That went rather quickly.







-Ani


On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Mitch Altman <maltman23 at hotmail.com> wrote:


As far as I can tell, we are doing OK now (or OK enough?) with the amount of money we're taking in.  I've been collecting money from the beverage-payment-can every week I'm in town.  I don't know how much Ani and Christie spent on their last (very large) drink run, but the amount I've taken in since their drink run is $540.17.  How does that compare with what's been spent?
 
 
According to people I've spoken to at various CCC spaces, selling Club Mate is a significant amount of their total income.  It is that popular!  
 
 
[True confession time:  I became a huge fan of Club Mate while at my first Chaos Congress in Berlin, even though I'm not into caffeine, and I am not at all into sodas.  When I first drank it, it tasted like a semi-bitter, bland, semi-sweet tea, but with some bubbles -- not awful, but not good either.  But I was thirsty, and eventuallly drank the bottle while talking with the person who gave it to me.  By the end of the bottle, I thought it was sorta OK (sorta).  After the third bottle that someone gave me, I actually liked the taste -- it grew on me.  Or, as the motto on the posters state (translated from German, or so I'm told):  "You Get Used To It".  And it's true!  And, unlike Red Bull, and the like, I don't get totally wired and hyper, and I don't feel negative effects coming down from it -- the effects (the buzz) are much cleaner.]
 
 
2600 does not, as far as I know, have an exclusive contract with the company that makes Club Mate.  But I know the two people who set up the importing from the company.  The company makes beer also.  But from the company's point of view, the reason they exist is to make beer.  Club Mate is an annoying sideline that they only continue because it is popular (in a sub-culture way -- it is super popular with geeks, but it is also somewhat popular at hipster cafes and restaurants and anarchist-type hang outs).  The 2600 folks worked out a way to be the first large exporters of Club Mate, with some reluctance on the part of the company that makes it.  I'm sure that other people can now work something out with the same company now that 2600 has worked out the details with the company, and the company presumably now sees that it is only to their benefit (i.e. profit) to sell Club Mate to aliens hankering for it.  I don't think the price will be much different, however.  By far the biggest chunk of the price per bottle is shipping, and not the drink itself.  There's also a fee that you have to pay US customs (above and beyond the import duty) that is a few hundred dollars (each entity that imports has to pay this fee -- either a one-time smaller fee, or a larger annual fee, but both are a few hundred dollars -- I have to do this every year that I import TV-B-Gone remotes into the country from China).  So, importing a large quantity is way more cost effective, since the customs fee is the same regardless of quantity, and the shipping companies require a lot of "per shipment" costs.  {The most cost-effective quantity would be importing a Full Container (which is some large number of pallets, where each pallet is 800 bottles) to the port of Oakland, where we pick it up, and then distribute it -- but this is most probably beyond the scope of Noisebridge.}
 
 
Mitch.

 
 
 
 


Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:28:32 -0700
Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Club Matte for Noisebridge
From: longobord at gmail.com
To: matt at peterson.org
CC: maltman23 at hotmail.com; noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net




To be clear, there is no soda that has ever been brought into noisebridge that only cost us $0.25.  I suspect that people were balking at the $2.00 asking price, assuming $1.75 of that was profit for the space, which is unfortunate.  We simply can't get it much below regular retail, which I think confused the issue.  I haven't had time or energy to go through and count what's left and what the take has been.  Preliminary counts were not good.

It sounds like the club mate at the rates Mitch is quoting are about the same as what we were getting for the red bull at costco.  I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to check around more to perhaps find better pricing on what we bring in, if we decide to get more.  It's nice to have, but I don't think it's worth the hassle of trying to stay on top of people who continue to use the rest of us.

(Although I'm hearing different stories on "official"-ness from different people - reports from 2600 that they're it differ from what people have understood from the bottler.  This makes me a little uneasy.)


On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Matt Peterson <matt at peterson.org> wrote:

Did the lack-of-payments for the existing soda/drink stock get sorted?
It would seem like a bad idea to import a bunch of expensive soda if
we're still having problems recouping the costs of $0.25 varients ;)

For those who don't know, Club Mate is a sort of legionary in the hacker
space scene of europe.  Something more popular then say Mtn Dew or Jolt
Cola, but similar in vain geekness, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club-Mate>.

(and yes, I'm a fan of Club Mate and reguarlly haul back two cases
everytime I hit up .de)


On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 04:55:59PM -0700, Mitch Altman wrote:
>
> I just got an email from folks at 2600.  They are the one official importer for Club Matte in the US, having set that up with the company that makes Club Matte in Germany.
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