Teamwork

Schools are like a human body... with many components that work together for the benefit of all. A long time ago it was proven that students need regular nutrition in order to learn at optimum levels. What good is a brain if there is no blood pumping fresh oxygen and nutrients through that grey matter? The brain needs the heart. The heart needs the stomach. These organs all need eyes and muscles and ears and mouths and arms and legs. Just as the human body needs every component, so schools have many components that need to work together for the benefit of all… scholastic achievement, social training in cooperation & respect, sports, nutrition, vocational and special education and more have to blend into a single community. You can incorporate other school departments into the Nutrition Department’s vending program so that everyone shares the load and benefits together... just like a healthy human body.

You don’t absolutely need the help of all these departments. Many Nutrition Departments do everything themselves. It really isn’t all that difficult ... and the rewards are immense. However, you can offer to include some of the other ‘organs’ of the school body to encourage that joy of partnership that comes when a healthy body has every organ working together for the common good.

Special Education students are restocking vending machines at some schools. They even qualify for grants on occasion, as restocking vending machines qualifies for on-the-job training. They pick up a planogram in the kitchen showing where every product belongs. They jot down on the form how many of each item they need to fill the machine. They go to the stockroom and get exactly what is needed for a full restocking. These Special Ed students rarely do anything less than an excellent job in my experience. They may take a few minutes longer (or not... as they are motivated) but they are efficient and they make sure everything is perfect. Sometimes the Nutrition Department offers them some free food for their work and sometimes cash contributions to the department. What this does is free up your cafeteria staff and also avoids possible union issues.

Vocational Education Students can be shown by Vend-ucation’s local factory authorized Service Center techs how to maintain these computerized stores that we call vending machines. Once every month or two they can clean or replace the air filter, wipe down the channel of the coin changer, check for dollar bill residue, test all selections and do a preventive maintenance check. If there are more significant issues we can offer toll free phone numbers to factory techs who are happy to talk eager learners through the process of resolving a programming or mechanical problem.

Sharing Revenues with other departments can put the Nutritional Department into the exclusive driver seat for all food and beverages being offered in a school. Most schools have competitive vending machines outside the cafeteria. Some actually do have working timers on them so that competitive foods are not sold from 10AM-2PM. Why not offer to replace whatever vending machines where the Administration or Sports Department or Booster Club or Student Council might be enjoying some tiny commission (which they innocently think is large). They key to the success of this approach is to offer to provide the same exact level of funding... not the same level of percentages of sales promised. I have only seen one school vending company that didn’t lie about the amount of sales.... in over thirty years of experience and over a thousand vending operators I have dealt with. Don’t ever promise the same percentage of sales being offered by a vending operator. They are never audited and therefore they are free to report whatever they please. Even the computer programs for vending companies all have the capacity to generate false commission reports to clients. Every program I have ever seen in the market has this capacity... sadly. Just find out what actual monies have been paid and offer to pay the same.

If you wanted to offer to provide hallway vending machines that accepted the cashless POS purchases (as well as cash) you could offer to pay a percentage of whatever sales occurred outside the lunch time-frame. Many POS companies working with us offer a time-stamp for all sales. We can show you how... just give us a call or an email from our Contact Us page.