Question for college students

A few cents, yes! But sometimes my university makes the healthy options sooo much more and I hate it! Every week I spend an avg. of 40-60 on groceries to make for the week. I get a variety of fruits, yogurt, cereal, carrots, soy milk, almonds, healthy desserts, some frozen meals, and ingredients to make certain recipes. Plus, I have to buy cat food and supplies as well.

If we're REALLY talking pennies or dimes I'd MOST of the time choose the better option but if it's a buck more unfortunately I'll probably choose the cheaper option. Which is why I take my lunch to class.

I persoally would go for the healthier food even if it was a little bit more expensive. But like everyone else is saying a few cents, not a few dollars more. I'm a junior in college and even getting married in a month, so I would really appreciate if there were healthier choices on campus for students! However some students are just trying to save money and thats why they put unhealthy cheap food/snacks out.

I personally don't buy from vending machines unless its water or I'm crazy desperate (I don't drink sodas and trying to get away from sweets and salty stuff) so I don't spend more than probably $5 a semester on vending machine stuff.

But, I think your research here on MFP will be a little bias.

Honestly, I had such a tight budget in college, I had to eat things like: pasta sides and cereal...I couldn't afford much fresh produce

A bag of generic cereal for $5 gave me breakfast for a month!

I don't eat college food because they never have any vegetarian meals. The only vegetarian things are cheese sandwiches, which obviously aren't so healthy. Also the cheese and tomato pasta is around 600 calories too.

Even if my College sold apples I'd buy one!

It depends on the perceived heath difference. If it is small – I’ll go ahead and save a few cents – I am very familiar with the price/oz labels at the store.
(After a few years on student assistant salary, it a few cents adds up.)

Examples:
white vs. wheat pasta: I’d like to buy wheat – but I’ll buy white if I’m feeling price sensitive that day.
Lean vs. fattier meats: Sometimes the lean is outrageously priced! Whole foods has some great cuts of bison, but I reserve those purchases for special occasions.
And sometimes, when you only have a few bucks in your pocket and a college education, justifying the health benefits on the Wendy’s menus becomes pretty easy . . . .

Just be aware of consumer perception. If you can bring the heathy options within the range that students are not price-sensitive to (when in the consideration set of the unhealthy competitors). . .you should be all right.
Best of luck!

Are we talking a healthy cookie vs an unhealthy cookie, or an apple vs a cookie? That makes a difference for me...

I would absolutely take the healthy choice!!! Only a few cents more? That's no problem for me! I find it quite difficult to find 'healthy' choices that are truly healthy in my university's eateries. Sometimes it's just really tempting to get the worst thing on the menu when there aren't any calorie wise solutions.

I stopped eating food on campus because of all the fat. I cook a lot more now but EVERYTHING at my university that is healthy is expensive. The same at grocery stores too. They way I see it is that I am spending a little extra for my health and that is okay as long as it's not too expensive I can live with a healthy choice. My suggestion would be to make more healthy choices available! At my school there's like only one salad bar between a burger place and a pizza place talk about hard choices!! Hahaha

I am not a college student, but I am a seminary student, and I'd love to see legitimately healthier vending options. But my question is this what does a few cents mean. Because to me it means no more that 5-10 cents. If you are talking about a 25%-50% price difference I'll pass. And the wholesale costs on pop chips and "natural" soda do not bear any retail price difference considering the huge mark up in vending machines and a lot of us are savvy enough to know that.

We aren't sure how much it will cost yet. Just knowing the price of healthy and organic tends to be more. I'm hoping it will be competitive with the junk, so you can have healthy at the same price.

Oh, and it's name brand stuff, not homemade or off brands.

To play devils advocate (I was a marketing executive at Sun Microsystems before answering the call to ministry), I have to ask on what basis are you assuming that wholesale on vend packs is going to be higher for "healthy" food. It seems to me you are getting way ahead of your self. You are thinking retail pricing before you know either product or enterprise cost. Have you done market analysis to see what percentage of your target customers are concerned with healthy eating (not self reported but actual $ spent), are there exclusive vending licenses in place for the products you want to sell in your area, are the vending contracts in place at the colleges you are targeting etc. (and for how long).

I would go for the healthier option, although I would hope it wouldn't be too much more expensive!
I only go out to eat maybe once every two weeks. I usually get yogurt, eggs, potatoes, fruit, veggies, and snacks from the store in my residence building that I can use my meal points in.

I don't use the vending machines at all because everything in it is pretty much junk. If they had options like.. dried fruit or something in the vending machine, i'd be more likely to succumb to its willpower. We have a subway on campus so that's pretty much where I'd eat, if I were to eat on campus (99.99% of the time, I don't).

And pretty much like everyone else said.. a few cents more, yes. Dollars? No way.