/biz/,
What do companies like Frito-Lay gain when some of their products aren't available in some regions? The reason I ask this is because I live in a section of the Midwest where it's impossible to find a bag of flamin' hot Fritos in any store (all we have here are the plain corn chips and the shitty chili cheese flavor), and the prices online are insane. I was in California on vacation and happened to find a goldmine of them at a grocery store, so naturally, I grabbed a few bags for the future of my fat ass.
Is it that prohibitive for a company like Frito-Lay to ship a product here? How exactly does this shit work?
>>1073229
Statistically, there's higher demand for certain products in certain areas than in other areas. It costs money to stock stores products that might not sell.
>>1073229
Okay, so if some stupid niche brand variation of yet another salted baked snacky-treat doesn't exist in your immediate area in the US it's because the retailers are not aware or chose not to stock that product, due to cost, shelf-space, ect.
Entire brands, like say for example, PBR beer, it doesn't exist in the deep south because it faces so much other competition and the firm that distributes PBR has to truck it further, where it will end up with a higher mark-up and nobody is going to pay a premium for PBR when the market is already absolutely saturated with similar swill.
It's your duty to demand these products from your retailers. The retailers may pay more for a specialty variation of the usual salted baked snack they always stock their shelves with and may worry they'd sit on the shelf and go bad before they can be sold but those costs can always be passed on to you, if you really gotta have that shit.
>>1073229
they have factories all over the US, since it doesn't make a lot of sense to ship a 99 cent bag of air and grease very far.
your local factory doesn't make them.
>>1073254
Many retailers exist purely off of stocking otherwise hard to come by regional items and charging a significant markup for them. OP should seek out one of those if he wishes to buy his Flamin' Hot Fritos. If enough demand is sensed in those specialty retailers then more traditional stores will start picking up the item.
>>1073229
Yeah, I asked the same question about Dr Pepper. There was a bottler (the original, in fact) in Texas that made it with real sugar and sold it online. Then Dr Pepper corporate got all butthurt and shut them down.
Basically, the distributor in your area feels entitled to sales in their district, regardless of which products the choose to sell, and will shit up a storm if you buy from out of your area.
>>1073254
Fyi PBR is and has always been all the fuck over the deep south.
Source: lived in the deep south almost my entire life.
>>1073229
>Is it that prohibitive for a company like Frito-Lay to ship a product here?
Basically yeah. If a region doesn't have a high demand of them, then stores have no need to order a bulk shipment from distributors.
AFAIK most grocers in California are Mexican run so we get all things Flamin' and even Frito-Lay Mexican versions like Queso Ruffles.
>>1073229
its all about the demographics friend
>>1073254
I live in southern Alabama and can tell you that PBR is available in most stores, but I've never seen anyone drink it.
What you said was true though, but I think another reason why some of their snacks aren't available in certain regions is due to a regional brand already capitalizing on the market share for a particular chip.
For example, in the south we have a regional brand called Golden Flakes. They have certain chips that, for a while, I didn't see other brands offering--like pickle chips.
I don't think some companies are going to market a similar product of something a regional brand has been offering for a while.
It was only in the past year that I've seen a Lay's pickle chip bag, but if I had to choose I would pick Golden Flakes just because that's what my mommy threw in my lunch box every day for my Kindergarten lunch.
I work at a store and live in an area with a Frito factory. Depending on the store its manager will have some authority over choosing what products they order, but overall most stores have a set type of product they get so there isn't too much variety. Depending on how well the items sell the vendor will adjust how many are sent to the store and this can vary depending on the weekly sales, I think we get chips delivered twice a week.
One of my co-workers got our manager to order cheesy garlic bread chips and they sold okay so now we get a few of those. If you are buddies with someone in retail you could ask around or try to get a store to order what you want.
