The last two companies I worked for were very large dot com’s, both of which had their own on-site cafeterias.  Both companies were run by the same catering service, so they had very similar setups.  You’d find several stations of different kinds of food/cuisine and various cash registers to pay for the food.  Around the cash registers were a tempting assortment of snacks, candy, and homemade desserts designed to rope you into a last minute purchase.

The homemade desserts were awesome.  Cookies, brownies, and rice krispie treats for a buck each.  However, there was one major flaw.  They were HUGE.  You could lay the foundation for a colonial mansion with these bricks.  To use one of this year’s newly sanctioned words from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, they were ginormous.

In fact, they were so big, you kind of didn’t want to buy them because you knew you wouldn’t have enough room to eat it all after your lunch.  The solid brick of sugar was a bit off-putting (but I don’t have a sweet tooth, so maybe that’s just me) and guilt-ridden (especially if you’re going back to sit inert in a cubicle all day).  Even if you saved part of one for later, you’d have that unappetizing crumbly, half-eaten brick, re-wrapped in crumpled cling wrap.  Plus, eating the rice krispie bricks, in particular, were an exercise in doing your best python interpretation.

Every day at lunch I really wanted to buy a homemade dessert, but ultimately decided against it simply because they seemed so overwhelming.  I thought to myself, “If they cut these bricks in half and sold them for 50 cents each, I bet they would sell like hot cakes.”

At my last job, I was describing my brilliant merchandising plan to my lunchmates, and one of them encouraged me to tell the cafeteria manager.  Sure, why not?  So I did.  He was very receptive and thanked me for my suggestion. 

Whenever you give feedback (e.g. comments cards, emailing customer service, walking up to a manager), you never know if anything will happen with your feedback.  Well, something did this time! 

They actually came up with an even better solution.  Instead of chopping the bricks in half, they chopped them up into small bite-sized pieces, wrapped them in a pretty cellophane bag, and continued to charge $1 each.  It was brilliant.  You could eat one or two pieces after lunch for a small, satisfying dessert.  You could share the bag with your table or friends.  You could save the bag for throughout the afternoon or easily take it home with you.  And they started selling like hot cakes.