Automatic Merchandiser - 18

OPERATION

PROFILE

Scott Allan has embraced the
service and teamwork components
inherent in his family's business,
which now employs two dozen people
who run accounts in two northeast
states with micro markets, office coffee service and vending operations.

have the control of
''We
production, so it is easy to make
adjustments.''
Scott Allan, co-owner and operations manager

Making it a family business
Scott's maternal grandparents, Charlie and Enes Adams, started the company in 1946 as a simple gumball and
peanut vending machine company.
Over the years, the couple grew it
into Consumer Cigarette Service,
a cigarette machine and post-mix
machine business. Post-mix vending was an early form of canned soda
machines that was similar to fountain machines.
"That was the total scope of the
full-line vending," Scott said.
The company began its operations out of a two-car garage in New
Hampshire before the family bought
a building in the area.
Scott's mother, Joann Allan, grew
up in the business, running routes
when she was young, and Scott's
father, Steve Allan, a former
chef, also worked part-time
for the Adamses. When
Charlie's health started
to fail, Scott's parents
decided they wanted to
keep the business running. Steve and Joann
bought the business
Steve Allan, Scott's
in the mid-1970s and
father, is one of the
renamed
it Allan's Vendthree co-owners.
ing Service.

Scott joins the family business
Scott grew up in the business, like his
mother, and while he enjoyed working in the family company, he wanted
to explore other options as well. He
went to college and received a degree
in general studies in 1986.
Through a summer of work at
the company after college, he became
confident the vending business was
18

Automatic Merchandiser

for him, and he officially joined the
company that year.
"At that time, we were seeing
some good growth, so I thought that
would be what I wanted to stick
with," Scott said. "It's what I had
known my whole life."
Scott said in the early 1980s, he
and his parents decided it would be
best to eliminate the company's cigarette machines.
"During the early '80s, they were
slowly banning [cigarettes] from
areas where a teenager could buy
them, and we could see the writing
on the wall that unless [the machines]
were inside a bar where you had to
be 21, they would be asking us to pull
them eventually," Scott said.

Responding to clients' needs
Around 1988, the company began
receiving more requests for cold
food vending at bigger accounts. As
Allan's Vending Service was just
branching out into that area, they had

VendingMarketWatch.com

June/July 2019

Lawrie Donnelly works in the commissary
that the company operates.

limited offerings. The family decided
to partner with a local deli to provide
customers with supplies such as sandwiches through food machines, but
the deli's provisions weren't measuring up to what the family wanted for
its clients.
"We were getting a lot of inconsistency as far as what we thought the
product should be," Scott said. "Especially with my father being a former
chef, he tended to be a bit picky about
what was coming through."
With Steve's experience as a chef,
the family decided it would be best to
open their own commissary instead
of trying a different deli. Since the
company was still working out of the
two-car garage at the time, the family
decided to buy a commercial building
to house the commissary. Scott and
Steve would start making food at 3
in the morning before delivering it
through the day's routes.

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Automatic Merchandiser

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