Remix and Taste the Rainbow!
Incredivend’s Kiosks Add New Fun to Skittles, M&M’s
A unique machine on the market lets Skittles lovers customize their candy experience. Incredivend’s Skittles Remix Digital Kiosk lets customers use a touchscreen to mix and match their favorite flavors to vend their own personal blend of “America’s favorite candy.”
The colorful, eye-catching kiosk offers the Original Mix, individual flavors from that (strawberry, orange, lemon, lime and grape), as well as the Wild Berry Mix and Mash-Ups Mix. (Having experienced the tasty fun the kiosk provides firsthand, the RePlay staff can attest to its appeal!)
Journey to the Rainbow
Before starting Incredivend, based in Walled Lake, Mich., Howard Rubin started a bulk vending company. He grew it to over 10,000 gumball machines, primarily located in malls and movie theatres around the country. But what first changed the game for Rubin and Incredivend was automation and striking a deal with Wonka.
“Technology started advancing, and I knew the advancements could not only enhance the consumer’s experience but also raise our average sale from 25 cents to $5 or even more,” Rubin said. “So, I started to get involved in creating an automated solution for the vending space. This created an opportunity with Nestle, which owned the Wonka brand.”
After developing a sound business model, Rubin began executing his vision, and by 2014, things were going great. But then, they learned Nestle sold the Wonka brand. “Overnight, we were out of business,” he said.
Looking for another big hit in the candy space, in 2016, Rubin got a call from The Pelican Group, a leading vending and amusement operations management company. Through them, he learned that Mars Wrigley was looking for a vending solution for Skittles. Incredivend got 20 machines to place and thus began their partnership.
“That was going really well, and Mars was pleased with the results they were seeing, so I purchased the original Wonka machines back and started rebranding them from Wonka to Skittles,” he explained. About 200 of those were put on location and tested very well, Rubin said.
With such results, Incredivend created the idea for the updated Skittles Remix Digital Kiosk in 2021. Though slowed by Covid, they partnered with Design to Production in Australia to design and develop the kiosk and rolled out the machine at the March 2023 Amusement Expo. They’ve been quite busy thus far.
“We’ve got about 300 machines in the marketplace right now and our goal is to add another 1,000 this year,” Rubin said. In addition to distributing the machines, Incredivend also operates them, owning about half of the kiosks on location. (At the start, they owned them all.)
The kiosks attract candy lovers of all ages at malls, FECs, bowling centers, universities, water parks, airports, movie theaters, stadiums, trampoline parks, casinos and other consumer hotspots.
“The family entertainment space has really taken off with all the innovation now out there,” Rubin said. “We’re seeing some great new concepts coming out, so we’re focusing a lot of our sales initiatives on those types of locations,” Rubin said. “That’s going to be a big part of our growth.”
The company has found so much interest that Mars has decided to launch an M&M’s version of the Remix machine, which was unveiled at last year’s IAAPA Expo and is expected to be available this fall.
Incredivend is looking for revenue-share partners, as well as venues or other operators who may want to buy and operate the machines themselves. “We offer something kind of unique,” he said. “For the rev-share accounts, once they see the revenue these machines can generate, they can convert the program over to a purchase model and get 100% of the profits instead of sharing them. It’s like taking a free test drive.”
Venues that buy the machines are reportedly seeing returns at around the one-year mark, if not sooner, Rubin reports.
While the machine started off taking cash, credit or mobile payments, Incredivend also partnered with Intercard as the first card system to work with the kiosk. Since then, Amusement Connect, Cantaloupe and Embed have come on board, and the company is working with others on implementation.
About the kiosk’s design, Rubin added: “Since we’re operators, when we designed the machine with Design to Production, things like maintenance were strongly taken into consideration. It’s all very simple to use, like cleaning the easily removable bins. We were thinking like an operator throughout the whole development process.” Also for the operator is the digital aspect of the machine, which allows for a brand logo or venue ad to be displayed on the touchscreen while the machine is not in use.
He also reminded potential buyers and operators that what makes this machine unique is the SKUs are only available through these machines. For instance, no one can walk into Walmart and buy straight flavored Skittles.
“It’s about the experience and customization as well as making it trendy.” Rubin explained. “That’s what sets the machine apart from other vending machines. We’ve been approached by a lot of companies to create a solution for them, but Mars has been such a fantastic partner to work with, and we feel very honored to call ourselves Skittles Ambassadors. Plus, they have awesome brands so hopefully our innovation will go beyond the M&M’s Remix kiosk.”
Visit www.incredivend.com to learn more.