august2024 - 17

AMERICAN
Buffalo Strive wins prestigious foodservice award
In early 2024, Jon and Jen Corto
of Buffalo Strive Vending received
the International Foodservice
Manufacturers Association (IFMA)
Silver Plate Award, which recognizes
professionals who have demonstrated
extraordinary food service leadership,
and who have made impactful
contributions to the advancement of the
industry. Of the eight food-away-fromhome
categories, Buffalo Strive won in
the Grocery, Convenience & Specialty
Retail category. The award ceremony
took place on May 18 in Chicago.
customer service email. If a customer
needs a refund, the technology will
automatically send the refund via
Venmo, saving the vending company
time and money. " It has been a huge
game-changer for us, " said Jen. " The
customers no longer have to call us
and go through prompts and wait
days for a refund. Now, they get a
refund in seconds. ZippyAssist has
automated the entire process. "
Although ZippyAssist is the first
AI technology Buffalo Strive has
integrated, it has a company goal to
incorporate more of these automated
systems into operations in the next
year or two. " People want things done
faster and more efficiently, " Jen continued.
" The more automated we can
make things without losing that service
component is huge and customer
service is a big area AI can help,
whether that's answering phones or
connecting to service technicians. "
MICRO MARKETS LEAD TO
A FOCUS ON FRESH FOOD
As the company's micro market
segment continued to grow, Buffalo
Strive found itself expanding into
another unexpected area: fresh food.
Fresh food sales in its micro
markets continued to be a hit with
customers, so the Buffalo Strive
team thought about ways in which
they could provide the fresh food
themselves. " Customers can tell when
a sandwich is frozen, thawed and
put in a cooler, and it doesn't taste as
good as one made fresh that morning, "
said Jen.
The company decided to invest
in fresh food and started by hiring
several chefs and opening an offsite
space where they could prepare fresh
food for their micro markets. In the
last several years, the kitchen has
moved into a large onsite commissary
in the company's 40,000-square-foot
facility. " What sets us apart from our
competitors is our fresh food and
how we make it every day, " said Jen.
" Our bakers and chefs are constantly
coming up with new ideas and rotating
menus. When we go to sell a
micro market to a customer, we bring
our fresh food to every meeting.
That's what makes us different. "
She notes that while the snack
rack in most micro markets is going
to look the same, the Buffalo Strive
fresh food coolers are going to be
vastly different.
The company's commissary has
been so successful that they have had
outside businesses asking to buy and
sell their products in other markets.
Beyond vending and micro markets,
Buffalo Strive is now working on creating
a wholesale fresh food division
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605-854-6076
METAL DISPLAY STANDS
COFFEE STANDS
KIOSKS
DRY GOODS STANDS
MICROWAVE STANDS
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CUSTOM OPTIONS AVAILABLE
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august2024

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