Exclusive Licensing Brings Innovative Single-Moving-Part Ice Dispensing Technology to the Market

Bluebox Smart Ice and Water introduces the industry’s first on-premise ice and water vending solution functioning as an “Ice-as-a-Service” enterprise. Using an exclusive licensing agreement for the convenience store sector, Bluebox Ice as a Service employs Everest’s VersaVend^TM proprietary ice vending equipment. Bluebox lifts responsibility off operators and handles all delivery, setup, preventative maintenance, and repairs. With proven 99% uptime and a daily ice production capacity of two tons, this equipment produces fresh ice on demand, right at the point of use, and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Major national retailers aiming to gain a first-mover advantage ahead of October’s NACS Show with the Ice-as-a-Service platform have started pilots. Once qualified, the unique revenue-share model turns an enterprise convenience store brand into an overnight profit center, providing benefits like no capital expenditures, equipment, maintenance costs, or storage needs.

“Our ‘bluebox’ modernizes the entire ice and water fulfillment system from start to finish," says Ben Gaskill, CEO of Bluebox Smart Ice and Water. "More importantly, we eliminate all the negative impacts of today’s packaged ice process, including delivery issues, out-of-stock, lack of tracking, waste, theft, retail space use, after-hours access issues, and consumer frustration.”

Packaged Ice Industry Facing Downward Spiral

Despite the innovations introduced at the NACS Show each year, the largest convenience and fueling retailers still must deal with an outdated ice delivery industry that’s only slightly better than the 19th-century supply chain. The retail ice business is a losing game due to delivery delays that cause stock shortages, waste from excessive labor, product damage, and theft, as well as missed revenue because of limited availability during operating hours and inefficient use of valuable retail space.

“In licensing from Everest, we can leverage a disruptive technology and combine it with a first-to-market solution, IaaS, to build a scalable enterprise platform that we believe will revolutionize the high-volume packaged ice industry,” explains Dan Doromal, President of Everest Ice and Water. “It’s clear that everything about the current packaged ice ecosystem is broken. Bluebox not only eliminates all the industry’s chaos but also addresses what is often the biggest barrier to new adoption – the cost of entry.”

About Bluebox Smart Ice and Water

Bluebox Smart Ice and Water is disrupting the packaged ice convenience store industry with Ice as a Service enterprise offering, modernizing the end-to-end ice and water fulfillment ecosystem. With patented, single-moving-part dispensing technology, VersaVend^TM, Bluebox eliminates the negative implications for every touchpoint in today’s current environment and offers enterprises a revenue share model that’s a scalable, self-serve, space-neutral, virtually labor-less, eco-friendly 24/7 vending solution. For more information visit blueboxiceandwater.com.

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