When you walk down the street at a fair or carnival, what smells immediately attract your attention? Many people will suggest that popcorn, donuts, and the unique mouth-watering aroma of roasted, slightly sugared nuts are what always stand out.

In fact, you may recall when almonds, walnuts, pecans and more, available in the traditional praline flavor or new cinnamon and vanilla, or even more exotic flavor combinations, awaited your pleasure. Would you, as a concession stand owner, want to bring back those smells and those youthful memories to your customers? Of course you would! And getting started in the sugared nut concession stand business has never been easier.

Why Nuts?

Sugared nuts are one of the easiest concession products to sell. They’re a healthy alternative for today’s health-conscious consumer, and they’re easy to create right on site – no cooking required! Sugared nuts can also yield up to 75% gross profit. If you’re looking for an easy, delicious, high-profit concession product, sugared nuts are for you.

What Do I Need?

To start a sugared-nuts concession stand business, you’ll obviously need nuts. These can be had from concession stand suppliers in, typically, 5 pound or 25 pound bags.  A single serving of nuts is sold in what’s called a ‘nut cone’ and those are sold in lots of 250. The nut cones can hold anywhere from 1-3 ounces, approximately. 16 ounces makes a pound, and if you sell your nuts for $3-$4/nut cone, you can see how easily your profits will appear

When you properly prepare the raw nuts, five pounds of nuts will yield 10 pounds of saleable product, because of the praline process. You prepare your raw product in a round processor called a Pralinator and they come in various sizes and power usage, from 120 volts to 240 volts and 4000 watts. The biggest Pralinator can produce a four pound batch of sugared nuts every 15 minutes, after the initial batch is prepared, which will take longer.

How to Make Sugared Nuts

For a single four pound batch of sugared nuts, you will want to use 2 pounds of nuts. You can use any sort of nut you want, though almonds, peanuts and pecans seem to be the most popular choices with the consumer. You can purchase the nuts from almost anywhere, but be sure that they are fresh and that they do not contain shells. If you are going to sell peanuts in your stand you may want to consider buying a small Pralinator specifically for peanuts, to accommodate those with peanut allergies. Keeping your peanuts separate from the rest of your concession equipment may well provide an extra selling point, allowing you to assure your customers that your nut products do not actually contain peanuts.

To the nuts you want to add one pouch of frosted nut mix (which is sold anywhere that has sugared nut concession equipment) and twelve ounces of concentrated 3-1 vanilla mix. A common vanilla mix of this sort is called Uncle Dave’s Vanilla, and --- just like the nuts and the frosting mix --  be purchased wherever concession products are sold.  Put all of your ingredients into the Pralinator and let the machine do the work. All you have to do is scoop out the nuts from their holding bin and give them to your customers.