sumers will buy food from a micro
market and pay more for it. Mark
believes the key is being able to pick it
up and examine it. He also notes that
there are many top-selling items that
just won't ft in a vending machine,
like soups and bigger candy packages.
"Those are the items that sell a ton
— increasing your volume," he said.
Lathrop Vending's biggest micro
market seller is salads. They outsell
any salad in his vending machines
— even if it is the exact same salad.
Lathrop Vending offers some of
the same products in vending and
micro markets, but much of the food
is specially prepared for the micro
markets by a local caterer. "The
micro market-only items might be
a different size or have different
breads," said Mark. "They are also
often wrapped differently than food
for the vending machines."
A challenge to managing fresh
food sales is to minimize the waste.
Lathrop Vending has one of its micro
market supervisors dedicated to ana-
lyzing and reducing the out-of-date
food. "He tries to minimize stales to
5 to 7 percent," said Mark.
"Micro markets have changed the
business quite a bit," said Mark. It's
not just at the point-of-sale, but in
how the operation works. Mark has
dedicated micro market-specifc coor-
dinators, supervisors and warehouse
staff to prekit the micro market prod-
ucts, inventory and clean markets
and set planograms for new products.
"It's time-consuming to do all the
inventories and to watch cameras.
It's changed the landscape of how
we do things, but revenue-wise it's
helped grow the business," he said.
Mark thinks it will be interesting to
see how far micro markets can go and
how technology will make them more
viable for smaller locations.
Despite the large difference in
both the products that sell and how
the segment is run, micro markets
have brought at least one unexpected
beneft to Mark's vending segment.
"When we're looking for new items,
specifcally healthier items, we look at
those that sell well in a micro market
and ask if it will ft into a vending
machine," said Mark. If the answer
is yes, since the company already has
a SKU of that product in the ware-
house, Mark will try it in vending
and measure its success.
GPS has many benefts
Another change Mark decided to
make was to install GPS on all his
vehicles. He looked at the different
systems and decided to use Fleetmat-
ics. After 6 months, he's fnding it
May 2015 VendingMarketWatch.com Automatic Merchandiser 15
C O V E R S T O R Y