Aaarg....lance Removed Holes From Products...

[andyinchville]

Hi All,

I was dreading the the thought of it happening but Lance has decided to stop putting "holes" in its chip bags.

While most people would probably not even notice the lack of a hole on the top of a chip bag (since I would imagine most people have newer "tray" machines, many (actually most) of the machines on my route are older Tom's Polyvend machines that use "cork screws" (aka pig tails), to hold products on a rotating spiral to dispense products....the hole is necessary for the product to hang on the rotating spiral.

I have been attempting to amass tray type snack vending machines to speed machine fill times (currently if a product does not have a "hole" for hanging purposes I have to manually "tab" the product (put a self adhesive sticker with a hole in it and stick it to the item to be vended)...The tabs aren't really expensive BUT it can add 15 minutes to a machine fill time just putting stickers with holes in them to the products to be vended).

Does anybody have any recommendations on make / model of smaller "tray" vending machines? (Truthfully I would prefer a bunch of similar large machines (harder to shake and can handle bigger accounts or every other week fills on smaller accounts...but typically the bigger / newer machines cost bigger $$....of course the difference between a 4 wide and a 5 wide is often non existent).

Many of my machines at my smaller / slower accounts are either 12 selection (coin only) or 22 selection models (some coin only some with dollar bill acceptors).

I recently ran across a fella willing to sell 12 Wittern / Avanti Sea Breeze vending machines ( he said the model is a Sea Breeze ABS 12) (in actuality it is 6 snack machines tied to 6 soda machines)for a total of 12 units....While I am primarily into snacks and let Pepsi do all the sodas for me (I get a commission check) I am wondering if $3000 is a good deal on these machines? (I am not sure that the drink portion can work without the "brains" in the snack part of the machine)...I had thought of getting it and selling the soda parts off to recoup money....I am a little worried tho about the fact that the machine (snack part) is very narrow and may be easily subjected to shaking.

I was primarily interested in possibly doing this because it can be a quick and relatively inexpensive way to get a number of tray type machines on jobs (as a plus the 12 selects here all have bill validators whereas my 12 selects are coin only).

What do you all think?....are these decent machines?...Is wittern / Avanti a decent company (I can't say I've heard of them before today...It is hard to find info on them online based on what the owner told me...per the owner the machines work fine and are about 12 years old....is there much of a market for me to sell off the drink parts of the machines?

I would get a bunch of full sized vending machines but unfortunately I am not made of $$....(of course until I can get a bunch of tray machines I guess I will have to grunt out doing the tabbing but I was already working 11 to 12+ hour days when all the Lance chip bags HAD holes in them...AARG).

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Andrew

Andrew

[tedk]

Andrew:

I can't help you evaluate the Wittern machines, but instead of tabbing the bags have you tried a hand held, one hole punch to make your own holes? They are available at office supply stores and are are pretty inexpensive. It might be faster than tabbing.Just a thought.

[mission vending]

I think the seller is a little mixed up. Wittern and Avanti are two separate companies.I did a Google search on "Avanti Vending", it looks Avanti is a equipment dealer and they sell Wittern equipment. If that is the case then what your seller is likely talking about is the GF12 and CD6 set up. The CD6 is a satellite to the GF and requires a host to hook up to in order to operate. It can be hooked up to several of the Wittern models.

You are correct about the GF12 being subject to shaking, it probably weighs less than your polyvends and with the narrow profile are easy to tip over unless attached to a satellite snack machine.

I had a couple of them in the back corner of some warehouses a few years back. I found the shelves, or as you put it trays, to be cheaply made with stamped metal and frequently had problems with shelves falling out of their guides if the machine was shaken and then falling on top of the self and product below it. If these are indeed the machines I am speaking about I would suggest you save your money for some better equipment.

[andyinchville]

HI,

Thanks for the idea of the hand held hole punch....that would be a better alternative than tabbing since it is essentially free (even tho the tabs are cheap they still cost a little) and it eliminates the possibility of the product falling off the sticker (essentially a free product if it falls in the bin OR it creates a missing product spot and thus causes somebody to possibly lose money or stop sales from that row all together (if a person sees the blank spot they may not want to pay twice to get one product). However, since Lance stopped putting holes in the bags, they have also reduced the size of the heat crimped sealing band where the hole used to go....so now there is actually not enough room to safely make a hole (by safely I mean without risk of getting into the product section of the bag and essentially unsealing it thus causing it to go stale faster or inviting bug issues).

In thinking about this further, I would really be screwed if the company that makes the tabs decides to stop making them for whatever reason....THAT would be truly scary.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Andrew