State and Federal Healthy Foods Initiatives Spur Adjustments in Product Mix; Operators Strike Balance Between Healthy Items & Student Tastes to Keep the Coins Coming

SAN FRANCISCO August 25, 2010 ─Machine vending in schools has been transformed over the last five years by students’ changing buying habits and by healthy food initiatives enacted by state governments. Challenged to maintain revenues both for themselves and for the schools where their machines help fund computers, sports programs and after-school activities, savvy vending operators are now paying closer attention to the dietary quality of their product mixes while they employ new sales-monitoring technology from Cantaloupe Systems, Inc., to restock the freshest selection of items that sell best.

• Introducing new products from smaller vendors: Rob Oughtred of Ryan Vending in Victoria, BC uses Seed™ to identify and test which healthy products appeal to kids. Using Cantaloupe’s wireless system to provide instant consumer feedback, Rob has been able to expand his product offering to include healthy options from non-traditional suppliers like Kernels Popcorn, and in many cases, better pricing terms. He estimates that 50 percent of his healthy merchandise is sourced from smaller suppliers, up from 20 percent five years ago.
• Conducting taste tests to introduce new products: Gil Sanchez of Vend Naturals in Ventura, Calif., introduces students to new, healthy products via onsite taste tests. As a result of the information collected from these tests, Vend Naturals has been able to meet state healthy food requirements with nearly all of its products and the company’s revenues from machines on school property have steadily increased. Similarly, the Balanced for Life and Fit Pick campaigns designed by the National Automatic Merchandising Association includes taste tests as a critical part of any healthy program initiative. However, taste tests do not necessarily translate into dollars which is why Sanchez uses Seed to monitor which products sell the best in tandem with more traditional product introduction methods. Knowing exactly what is being sold as it is bought allows him to stock the machines with popular items before they lose their appeal.
• Becoming target marketers: Marc Whitener of Refreshment Solutions, based in Norco, La., uses Cantaloupe’s sales-monitoring software to grow his business while following Louisiana’s requirements for healthy items in school vending machines. Refreshment Solutions uses Cantaloupe technology to monitor in real-time, specific sales trends down to the individual machine and coil level, identifying the optimal mix of fresh, higher-priced items such as salads and lower-priced but still high-margin items such as popcorn.
• Tracking sales in real-time maximizes sales during the school year: Jodi Glimpse of Phoenix-based Camelback Vending uses Seed to maximize sales in the nine months school is in session. Knowing which products sell best at any given time allows Camelback Vending to restock its machines with best sellers, cushioning the poor sales periods when schools are on vacation.

“Cantaloupe’s very existence is predicated on the fast-changing nature of the vending industry – operators need new technology to meet a wide array of challenges, including the changing buying patterns of their customers,” said Mandeep Arora, Cantaloupe’s CEO. “Nowhere are these changes more acute than in the education sector, where operators must find a balance among student preferences, school policies, and government mandates – all while growing revenues for themselves and for the schools where their machines are placed. Cantaloupe is working with customers every day to leverage our technology in innovative ways to serve vending’s customers better, and in the process boost revenues and profits for operators and schools.”

About Cantaloupe Systems

San Francisco-based Cantaloupe Systems, Inc. is the fastest- growing, wireless vending solutions provider in the U.S. The company was founded in 2002 by engineers Mandeep Arora, a second-generation vending professional, and Anant Agrawal to provide automated merchandising for the $20 billion vending industry. Installed in individual vending machines, the Cantaloupe Seed device monitors all transactions and transmits the data securely via cellular networks and the Internet Cloud. The result: vending operators know the state of each machine’s inventory without making a physical visit. Operators using Cantaloupe Seed Solution average $35,000 in annual savings per route, can replenish 80 percent more machines per week, and can reduce their carbon footprint by 40 percent through the elimination of unnecessary truck travel and smaller loads per truck.

Cantaloupe is backed by Global Environment Fund of Chevy Chase, MD., and Foundation Capital of Menlo Park, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.cantaloupesystems.com.