Milk and Dairy Vending
Milk in a variety of delicious flavors, packaged in eye-catching, re-sealable plastic bottles, can be a profitable way for schools to offer a nutritious alternative to soda and sports and fruit drinks via milk vending. Adding cheese and yogurt products and pairing them with other nutrient-rich foods for dairy vending provide opportunities for students to make healthy choices throughout the school and increase their dairy consumption.
Start-up Funding
Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association offers start-up funding to schools interested in purchasing milk or dairy vending machines.
To apply for the start-up funding, thoroughly review the 2012 Dairy Vending Start-up Offer Guidelines. If you are eligible for the funding, complete our online 2012 Dairy Vending Start-up Offer Pre-Approval form.
After you submit your Pre-Approval form, the school marketing manager serving your school district will contact you. If you meet the eligibility guidelines and Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association approves your application, your school marketing manager will send you a Memorandum of Understanding to sign. Once Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association receives this document, we will walk you through the process of securing funding for your new milk or dairy vending machine.
For more information about the milk or dairy vending start-up offer, please contact us.
Vending Resources
Here are resources to help you start your vending program.
Considerations Prior to Beginning Milk Vending
13 things to consider before embarking on milk vending
School Milk Vending Promotion
Promotion ideas to help make your vending machine as successful as possible
Vending Distributors
Vending machine distributor contact information for the Mid-Atlantic region
Vending Success Story
Unique Dairy Vending Partnership at Williamson High School
Williamson High School, a rural school in the Northern Tioga School District in Tioga, Pa., has had dairy vending in their school for over six years. In fact, it was so popular they wore out one machine, which necessitated the recent purchase of a new AMS machine using a partial grant from Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association.
The Williamson vending operation is a unique partnership between the food service department and the Life Skills class. Joann Banik, R.D., food service director, and Peter Lisowski, Life Skills instructor, joined forces to provide students with healthy vending options while educating a targeted student population in basic business skills with a hand-on learning experience. The Life Skills class oversees the total operation of the vending machine beginning with the ordering of products, stocking the machine, and making the cash deposits. In return, the Life Skills class receives 10% of the profits from sales to use for special class projects and events. Sales average sixty units daily in a school of only 430 students, and they’ve had minimal problem with items going out of date. The machine is located in the cafeteria with easy access to students for after school and evening events in the building. New dairy items are added based on student recommendations and availability through the food service vendors.
The current Life Skills student vending manager has had responsibility for the vending machine for nearly two years. Lisowski proudly reports an amazing transformation in the social maturity and emotional growth of this individual. “He has found his niche here at school, and has become very popular and respected by his peers and the faculty,” exclaimed Lisowski.
The business aspect of the dairy vending operation forms an integral component of the Life Skills math classes. Lisowski’s students regularly discuss the operation, and a frequent assignment is to create bar graphs reflecting sales of each vended item. They also design comparison charts focusing on the days with the highest sales, and what they think the reason is for the increased sales. It is hands on learning at a grass roots level.
Banik feels so positive about the dairy vending operation at Williamson High School she has applied for additional grants to place dairy vending machines in the other high schools in the district.