Business, Industry & Public Spaces
Busy work schedules and hectic family lives mean people spend less time at home these days. Making milk available through vending in the places where consumers spend the majority of their time — offices, plants, schools, malls, parks, hospitals — is a smart move. Adding vended milk in business and industry locations means workers can choose milk as a quick, nutritious snack or as part of breakfast, lunch or break-time — driving sales and profit for vending operators.

MilkPEP conducted tests to evaluate the opportunity for milk vending in various settings — business and industry (B&I); college and university; public venues; and schools. The tests involved 150 venders placed in four markets. Three vender types were used — Royal Live-Display, Royal Closed-Front, Dixie-Narco Glass-Front — and featured 12-oz., 14-oz., and 16-oz. plastic milk packages in a range of flavors and a mix of local processor and national brands. Some machines also included non-milk products for comparison, including juices and fruit drinks (local processor and branded), water and sports drinks.

The results show vended milk represents a huge (and largely untapped) incremental sales opportunity in all of these locations. The tests also showed:

• Average weekly sales were 397 units per vending machine in B&I.
• Milk spoilage was a non-issue at less than 0.4%.
• Vended milk sales were incremental. Overall vending bank sales increased 17% from the same time period in the prior year with 40% of the additional sales coming from milk.
• Post-installation sales retention levels were high — nearly 80% across all vendors — better than the industry average of 50-60%.
• Variety drives sales. Tests showed that taking advantage of milk's new, expanded product mix can nearly double sales. Vendors that carried 7+ SKUs sold almost twice as much as those carrying only 4 milk products.
• Milk's not just for kids — on average, B&I locations outsold school locations on a per capita basis (0.27 units per person vs. 0.20 units per person).

Tips for vended milk success in business, industry and public settings

• Location, location, location!
  • Position milk vending machines in high-traffic locations with extended hours of access and operation, such as retail stores, transportation hubs and healthcare facilities.
  • Place in businesses with 300+ employees.
  • Place in heavy foot traffic areas at colleges and universities.
• Offer a variety of flavors — consumers love choices! Mix in new flavors regularly to increase excitement and consumption.
• Place milk vending machines next to snack and/or food machines to increase incremental sales of milk and food.
• For best results, mix milk and healthy beverage products together in the same vender.

Checklist for Getting Started One of the easiest ways to make milk a solution in business and industry locations is to add it to existing vending operations. Here are some questions vending operators need to answer when considering adding milk to their machines:

• What's the opportunity for incremental milk sales in each of my existing locations?
• Do any of my current customers have locations that may have an opportunity for new milk vender placement? If so, what other machine placements (e.g. snacks, juices, etc.) might also work in that location?
• Do I have an existing relationship with a milk processor? If not, how do I find a processor? If so, how can my processor help me add milk to my vending machines?
• Can my processor provide milk in plastic containers in a variety of flavors?
• Can I add single-serve plastic milk containers to existing machines?
• Is refrigerated delivery available to me? If not, is it feasible to add coolers to my delivery trucks? How?
• How will I handle refrigerated milk storage?
• How often will the milk vending machines need to be refilled?
• Do I have machines with a healthguard to ensure milk safety? How do I get one?