Cromer Food Services announced it was recently named runner-up of the 2013 Verizon Wireless Technology Innovation Awards – a competition for small and mid-sized businesses – and awarded a $5,000 prize for using technology in an innovative way.
Cromer Food Services has serviced vending machines in South Carolina and Georgia for 32 years. The company recently began to offer its customers –small businesses that own vending machines – a way to serve the untapped market of people who carry only plastic in their wallets.
“I noticed that few people under 40 carry cash, so by installing a card swipe on existing vending machines, sales instantly jumped by as much as 22 percent,” said Brent Cromer, president of Cromer Food Services, in a prepared statement.
Cromer has also equipped his field employees with handheld computers to help manage inventory. Accurate inventory counts are now sent over Verizon Wireless’s 4G LTE network so delivery vehicles carry only the supplies they need to restock machines.
“Improving the efficiency of our inventory management system has increased the capacity on board our vehicles by 50 percent. The additional items we place on the trucks drives revenue growth for us,” said Cromer.
