Pre-pandemic, caterer Drew Munro was planning to launch a line of vending machines that carried healthy, fresh food.
When COVID-19 restrictions shuttered his Drew's Catering and Events business, he shifted his attention toward this second business: UpMeals.
That meant accelerating his partnership with Nelson-based SMRT1 Technologies to design and create the vending machines.
UpMeals now offers to rent full-meal vending machines to businesses, landlords and potentially strata councils.
Its first installation in a residential building was this week at Devonshire Properties' Larch House (formerly Laurier House,) in the Beach Towers development at the corner of Bidwell Street and Beach Avenue.
Items include a Caribbean jerk chicken with corn salsa, and dairy-free butter chicken. The items are refrigerated, not frozen, and the meals tend to last three or four days. Items not sold are sent to the food bank, Munro said.
He told BIV that UpMeals installed several other vending machines in downtown Vancouver offices in September, but he would not name the clients because he did not have their permission.
The business model involves charging clients a one-time $1,500 fee, which includes wrapping the vending machine with whatever branding the client wants. The client would then pay anywhere from $299 to $499 per month, depending on the number of machines rented, to be able to operate the machine and use its software, which provides data analytics to show which items, and times of day, are most popular.
Munro also then sells packaged meals to the vending-machine clients.
"We have a wholesale relationship with that client, so Devonshire Properties, for example," Munro said. "The client has the ability to choose whatever retail price they want to display on the machine. So if they want to retain a profit, they can mark it up. If they want to make it a subsidized-meal program for their employees, they can not mark it up. They have total flexibility on whether they want to use the machine to generate profit, or if they want to use it to generate value [for tenants or employees.]"
Munro said he anticipates his company installing 10 more vending machines by the end of June.
Pre-pandemic, he leased around 2,000 square feet for a commissary for Drew's Catering and Events. Since the launch of UpMeals, he moved to a larger 4,200-square-foot commissary in south Vancouver. Including non-commissary staff, his company employs 35 workers, he said.
