Refreshment focuses on the water dispenser/cooler, office coffee service and vending sectors, while also taking an in-depth look into products for vending from bottled water and drinks, to snacks and confectionery. It also focuses on hydration, health and wellness, new technologies and environmental and social responsibility issues.
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Coffee & tea

HeroVend has launched a cloud-based vending intelligence platform designed to give operators real-time visibility over sales, inventory and performance across their machines.
The software connects to existing vending hardware via supported APIs and consolidates data into a single dashboard, including live sales, stock levels, cost tracking and automated reporting.
According to the company, the platform enables operators to monitor orders, revenue, profit and margins, with data refreshed every five minutes. Users can filter performance by machine, date range, payment status or customer, and access detailed product-level insights.
HeroVend team said: “We wanted to give vending operators the same kind of business intelligence that big retailers take for granted. The kind of insight that tells you which machine is underperforming before it costs you a week of revenue, or which product just fell off a cliff before you restock it.”
The platform includes a cost analysis tool that allows operators to configure cost of goods, transaction fees, sales tax and revenue share by location, automatically calculating margins for each product and machine.
At its core is ‘Hero AI’, an embedded assistant powered by Anthropic’s Claude, which enables users to query operational data in natural language. The AI also monitors performance through automated anomaly detection, identifying issues such as inactive machines, declining product sales or changes in customer behaviour.
HeroVend also provides a daily performance summary, highlighting key metrics, stock alerts and trends.
Inventory is tracked in real time, with automated stock updates based on sales data and configurable low-stock alerts. A log records all stock activity, including restocking and adjustments, while warehouse inventory can also be managed through the platform.
The web-based system is mobile-optimised and can operate offline using a local data archive. Additional features include role-based access, two-factor authentication and exportable reports in multiple formats.
HeroVend is available via subscription, with plans starting at $49 per month for up to 30 machines, rising to $79 per month for 31-100 machines and $199 per month for fleets exceeding 100 machines.
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