School vending ROCKS and it ain't going away any time soon. Don't believe what you hear on cable news or your local newspapers.

Kids are great consumers; if they have $10 in their pockets they spend it, if they have $50 in their pockets they spend it; if you don’t believe me ask anyone who owns a 7/11. My Vending Management Company has literally made millions of dollars from one single segment of high volume locations, SCHOOLS!

When we start our first vending route in 1983, we had just sold two very high profit supper clubs in DC, my business partner didn’t want to go with me to Atlanta to open a third so we started a vending route, his life long dream. He was going to run the route and a year later I was going to Atlanta to complete our plan. It took me a year longer than we had planned to get to Atlanta, you see, our vending route had really taken off and we were printing money. There were several reasons why it had turned out to be so successful. The first reason was simple, we had finally learned how to “overturn” other vending companies high-volume locations; that’s right, we take locations away from our competition, especially the BIG BOYS. After we figured out how to overturn contracts, we decided to turn our attention to schools of all kinds; it really doesn't matter what type of school it is as long as it isn't a elementary school, those kids are not allowed to purchase anything.

I’m sure you have read all of the articles in the newspaper that says that schools are going to soon ban vending machines; nothing could be further from the truth. Even in the early 80’s those articles were popping up several times each year. The truth is schools need the money that vending provides. You cannot lay the blame of short funding or obesity at the feet of coin operated vending machines or the bottlers that bribe school cafeterias with fat checks and school boards with expensive electronic score boards and scholarships. No you would have to blame that on politicians, the same scoundrels that seek out the news to proclaim their disdain for school vending every time an election cycle rolls around. Vending will be around until the government learns how to run a business, in other words, forever, they need vending to subsidize them.

So as soon as we figured out that ALL of the good locations already have vending machines in them, we developed a marketing programs to overturn those guys high-volume locations.

The public school system in the US is divided into two camps: Always remember the school belongs to the principal and if it is a public school Food Service is king. Some times the athletic director is the person to speak to about vending, but generally the principal runs the show and always makes the final decision. Food Service on the other hand is a big fat government run bureaucracy with all sorts of does and don’ts. If you have a choice between FS and the school, choose the school. Principals of schools can be very different. Some of them are great people who just want to make sure there is enough money to make up the shortfall of the state and county school boards. Others are more conservative, but as a whole these hard-working professionals know that they need your vending dollars to fill the shortfall of their county’s budget.