I disagree that it’s a price difference, especially since it wouldn’t be such a flat difference across options. Paying to ship water (as in, a complete drink) is generally never going to be cheaper than mixing flavoring into tap water on-site in a developed area. Even drinks at the bulk store is more expensive for me than using tap water at home (Mio, Gatorade, coffee, sodastream). Fountain machines are notoriously profitable, still less than 0.25USD per cup in syrup and materials.
Prepackaged kids drinks like milk or apple juice should be slightly lower in cost, take less time to include with a meal and are less prone to spillage in transit. The total cost for delivery is going to win even if the raw cost for the beverage is similar. (Milk and apple juice boxes are likely near zero profit and is already manufactured at brain numbing scales for schools already.)
Edit: OP just posted a picture of the milk and it isn’t school box sized. I did some price checks and the milk a dollar cheaper at retail pricing. ($1.50 vs $2.59)
Dine-in is self serve at a fast food restaraunt here in the US. Drive through/app order is filled on a fountain with an auto-stop. The labor time is the same as grabbing a juice box. You know what’s manufactured at brain-numbing scale? 2-gallon bags of black corn syrup to make 800 cups of soda. In no way will the shipping cost of 800 juice boxes be cheaper than the bag of syrup to use municipal tap water. And no, milk/juice is not produced at near-zero profit. That doesn’t make sense as a business model. Economies of scale does not mean profit goes down, it means the cost of production goes down and sale price can go down proportionally.
I disagree that it’s a price difference, especially since it wouldn’t be such a flat difference across options. Paying to ship water (as in, a complete drink) is generally never going to be cheaper than mixing flavoring into tap water on-site in a developed area. Even drinks at the bulk store is more expensive for me than using tap water at home (Mio, Gatorade, coffee, sodastream). Fountain machines are notoriously profitable, still less than 0.25USD per cup in syrup and materials.
It’s not about actual cost; it’s about menu price. The markup on fountain drinks is insane.
Prepackaged kids drinks like milk or apple juice should be slightly lower in cost, take less time to include with a meal and are less prone to spillage in transit. The total cost for delivery is going to win even if the raw cost for the beverage is similar. (Milk and apple juice boxes are likely near zero profit and is already manufactured at brain numbing scales for schools already.)
Edit: OP just posted a picture of the milk and it isn’t school box sized. I did some price checks and the milk a dollar cheaper at retail pricing. ($1.50 vs $2.59)
Dine-in is self serve at a fast food restaraunt here in the US. Drive through/app order is filled on a fountain with an auto-stop. The labor time is the same as grabbing a juice box. You know what’s manufactured at brain-numbing scale? 2-gallon bags of black corn syrup to make 800 cups of soda. In no way will the shipping cost of 800 juice boxes be cheaper than the bag of syrup to use municipal tap water. And no, milk/juice is not produced at near-zero profit. That doesn’t make sense as a business model. Economies of scale does not mean profit goes down, it means the cost of production goes down and sale price can go down proportionally.