Using a vending machine to reduce costs and to create a tidier work space

Lifestyle gardens, one of the biggest and best nurseries in South Africa, employs a lot of people. One seemingly small problem that a lot of big companies experience with big staff compliments is ensuring a tidy workspace when it comes to coffee and controlling costs of items like milk, coffee and sugar. When they asked us if a coffee vending machine could be used to reduce costs we gave our stock standard answer to this question, “it depends”.

What does reducing costs on milk, sugar and coffee depend on?

Not all companies can save on costs by installing a vending machine. Whether or not a company can save costs depends on the following factors:

• How well controlled the milk, coffee and sugar currently is
• How much pilferage happens on a monthly basis (if at all)
• How each individual is using products like milk (are people using milk in cereals or for shakes etc.)
• How willing the customer is, to experience “control challenges” once a vending machine is installed.

What challenges can be expected when installing a vending machine?

One of a coffee vending machines biggest benefits is also one of its biggest disadvantages. Coffee vending machines save on coffee consumable costs by limiting the amount of milk, coffee and sugar one can use per cup of coffee. This limitation can however, create negative experiences for some staff members as staff members are no longer able to use milk, sugar and coffee in traditional ways how they are used to and in cereals and shakes when a vending machine is installed.

How do you know if a vending machine will then save you money?

We have been succesfull in reducing costs in 80% of customers whose intention was to minimize costs. There were however 20% of customers who our solution failed for. The only way to find out if a vending machine will save your company money is by trying out a machine for a month and assessing costs as each circumstance is different.

How can you try a vending machine risk free?

What we offered to Lifestyle Gardens ,and many other customers, was a capped solution. Our capped solution works as follows: Lifestyle Gardens was spending around R10,000 per month on coffee and coffee related consumables. We guaranteed them a cost saving of 25% by capping their first months spend at R7500. This means that if their usage exceeded R7500 per month, which it did, then we would credit anything above the R7500. Their first bill came to R11,000 but we credited R3500 according to our capped solution. After the first month we reduced their costing so that every month their costs would amount to R7500.

What about cleanliness?

Liefstyle Gardens were also frustrated about messy coffee counters. A common reason many companies look to pursue a coffee vending machine is for their cleanliness. Many environments look  a little like the work space below:

Having sugar, milk and coffee outside a machine often can lead to messy environment. After installing vending machines in Lifestyle, there were no longer sugar sachets, spoons and milk lying around outside the machine. Vending machines do the mixing of all product inside the machine before dispensing so companies no longer have to worry about providing spoons and sachets any longer.

How to try a vending machine out:

If you want to test if a vending machine will manage to save costs in your company and contribute to a cleaner environment, please complete your details below and we’ll arrange a test machine for you for one month