A Glasgow company has won a contract to supply machines selling hot drinks in the Commonwealth Arena in the city, which it said could generate £2 million in additional sales.
Abercromby Vending has been appointed by Glasgow City Council to supply six machines which will provide a range of coffees, tea and hot chocolate for people attending the venue, in the city's east end over a four-year term.
With big attendances expected for sports such as cycling and badminton at the arena during the Commonwealth Games in 2014, the company's owner Tracey Graham expects the machines will sell well over 1000 drinks a week. Over the life of the contract she expects to generate average revenues of around £2000 a week from the machines, based on a selling price of £1.20 per drink.
"It's a big feat for a couple of kids from the east end of Glasgow" said Ms Graham, who started the business with her brother Thomas in 2005.
With a catering background, Ms Graham is keen to win further contracts to supply machines that could sell healthy foods in the facilities which will be used for the Games. The
family firm also supplies machines that stock foods ranging from sandwiches and staples such as mince and tatties to more sophisticated dishes, such as salmon terayaki, in microwavable containers.
"What you can get at a restaurant you can get out of our machines," said Ms Graham.
The food is produced at the company's base in Dalmarnock, and half of the recipes it uses have been classed as healthy under the Scottish Government's Healthy Living Award scheme after inspections.
The range has been a big hit (many of its ingredients are sourced locally, including the fruit and vegetable market at Blochairn), and Abercromby Vending now supplies around 250 food vending machines to a range of customers, and also supplies 250 drinks machines. Its customer base includes the NHS, South Ayrshire Council as well as private businesses.
Ms Graham said the machines can provide a full catering service on a 24-hour basis when dining facilities are not staffed.
Abercromby Vending has been growing sales quickly enough to win a place on Scottish Enterprise's account management scheme. The company has £1.3m turnover and 10 employees, including four catering staff.
It is investing £250,000 in enlarged production facilities in Dalmarnock, with official support under the Regional Selective Assistance scheme.
Ms Graham said she expects to recruit around five additional staff in coming months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article