Automatic Merchandiser - 36

than Streamware did. So, we
decided to run both side by
side at the same time."
Tahoe Vending also
built an entirely new
database for its Nevada
operation as the leadership
team wanted it compartmentalized and separate
from Sonoran Coffee.
"We wanted to structure
it differently and didn't
want any confusion in
reporting," Duxbury noted.
"Streamware recommended
Tech2Success to help us
do remote hosting of our
servers. We like being
vertically integrated, so we
took a look at having our
own servers in-house, but
when we looked at our own
capabilities to scale and the
investment in IT and IT
employment, Tech2Success
was a good fit and more
economically viable. So, we
partnered with Tech2Success for cloud hosting and
that's gone really well."
Duxbury said Reno's
booming economy made
it an ideal place to expand
operations, particularly for
OCS.
"All kinds of accounts
are willing to pay to get that
perk of office coffee to help
retain employees," he said,
comparing the region to
Yuma. "It's not 120 degrees
in the summer, there are
cold days in the winter, so
office coffee really became
much more hyperbolic
when we came to Nevada."
Noting that Canteen
has a strong relationship
with 365 Retail Markets,
Duxbury and his partners
made the decision to expand
36

micro markets in both the
Reno and Yuma markets
with 365.
"365 supplied us with
internet-connected temperature sensors so every single
freezer and food refrigerator
that we put out is connected
online," he said. "So, we have
third-party verification of
the temperature of those
refrigerators and freezers.
We really liked the capability to know what happened
on a given day or time. That
gave us some relief; we really
wanted to reduce that potential liability."
While Duxbury has
prekitted from day one, he
noted that LightSpeed Automation took the company's
prekitting abilities to an
entirely new level.
"It's one thing to prekit.
It's a whole other thing to
prekit using LightSpeed," he
enthused. "We use LightSpeed Mobile, which makes
us as fast as we can reasonably be. And, just recently,
we started working with
LightSpeed to use Level,
their inventory management
software. We've been very
impressed with it. We're
starting to use it for generating our purchase orders
instead of ordering direct
with our vendors, and we're
using it to ultimately control
our cost of goods and reduce
the amount of inventory that
we have tied up on the shelf."
Duxbury credits Caruso,
the company's CTO, with
keeping Tahoe Vending and
Sonoran Coffee on the leading edge of technology.
"He's been pretty relentless," Duxbury said. "All of

Automatic Merchandiser * April 2020

Technician Elliott Richards dons gloves, an N95 mask, and Oxivir
Five 16 virucide, which he uses to disinfect machines to prevent
the spread of COVID-19.

us partners have been in
alignment. We would not
have been able to scale at the
rate we have without consistently using technology to
gain efficiency."

I really want

THE RISE OF COVID-19

to how much

Like most businesses in
America - and the world
- Tahoe Vending and
Sonoran Coffee have been
impacted by the rise of the
coronavirus pandemic.
Duxbury's main concern
is the safety and health of
his employees and clients.
He said they have taken
extra precautions beyond
their already strict hygiene
and sanitization practices
to prevent the spread of
COVID-19 among their
accounts, particularly in
micro markets that serve
essential businesses, like

our industry to
pay attention
responsibility we
have to service
[accounts]
correctly in this
time of COVID-19.
Because if we're
not careful, we
may be the weak
link that shuts
these businesses
down."
Jarrad Duxbury, Tahoe
Vending/Sonoran Coffee
CEO
Automatic Merchandiser

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