november2023 - 19

FIVE STAR FOOD SERVICE
Team leaders: David Amberger, VP of purchasing and category
management, Kimberly Boorse, senior category manager, Jessie
Brown, category manager, Jay Harrold, purchasing manager, and
Austen Bowles, associate category analyst
The Five Star Food Service purchasing and category management
team works together with its supplier partners to maximize the
company's sales and profits by satisfying customer needs. The team
take a strategic approach in managing product category and product
selection to achieve sales and profit targets. They accomplish this
through: (1) Selecting the best product by working through supplier
partners and category captains. (2) Optimizing pricing based upon
market baskets, margin analysis and price elasticity. (3) Utilizing
space management tools to ensure that products are ideally placed
for optimal sales and margins through category and brand blocking
in its planograms. (4) Creating a robust promotion calendar to drive
consumers to its retail outlet and create excitement. (5) Gathering
information from both internal data and category captains to gain
insight into consumer behavior.
Kimberly Boorse handles the beverage and food categories, Jessie Brown handles the total snack category,
Jay Harrold is focused on pricing and margin improvement, and Austen Bowles is focused on placement in space
management software.
PANOPTYC
Team leaders: Mac Bolak, CEO, Ross Winston (not
pictured), head of business development, Bridger Keally,
VP of sales, Lisa Emanuel, general manager, and
Shane Wise, SDR
With theft on the rise, micro market operators are having
a harder time seeing their profit slip away, especially
when other priorities take precedence. Trying to catch
a thief is both time-consuming and difficult, with many
operators still dealing with outdated camera systems
and DVR swaps.
Panoptyc has changed the way theft detection and
security solutions are implemented in the micro market
industry. They provide a security camera system for
operators that uses AI to identify and flag anomalies in
customer behavior that predict theft. Once those are identified, Panoptyc's team of investigators analyze the footage
and compile a report detailing specific instances of suspected theft. Markets can have different tiers of service
depending on the operator/client's needs. Panoptyc makes sense for operators as a cost-efficient solution to micro
market loss prevention. All of these features provide operators with accurate and actionable cases so that they can
forget about theft and get back to growing their business.
SMILE COMPOSTABLE SOLUTIONS
Team leaders: Frankie Schuster and Michael Sands,
co-founders
Co-founders of Smile Compostable Solutions, Frankie Schuster and
Michael Sands, are disrupting the single-use coffee pod industry with
a commercially compostable option available for private label. The pair
have bridged sustainability and convenience with Smile's fully certified
compostable pod system and introduced a material that addresses all
economic, capacity and performance concerns for the coffee category.
Together, the partners are dedicated to building awareness and
education by speaking and volunteering at the local and national level on the damaging effects of single-use plastic,
the importance of carbon reduction, and the need of end-of-life audits on all consumer packaging. Ten percent of
their working hours are spent weekly working with the US Compost Council, US Plastic Pact, Biodegradable Products
Institute, Compost Manufacturing Alliance, and other organizations trying to bring sustainability to consumer
packaged goods.
November 2023 * VendingMarketWatch.com 19

http://www.VendingMarketWatch.com

november2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of november2023