High school advisor Jason Black explains an easy-to-implement, school store vending machine program, that gives students an opportunity to run a real business (hands-on). Students learn about problem-solving, finances, marketing, product development, customer service, and teamwork. He says it “It’s fun, they stock it and come back after lunch and it’s all gone, they have to restock it. They generating roughly $5000 per month”.

Rio Rancho High School students Take over the Vending Business at their school

Rio Rancho High School averages $50,987 each year with two snack boxes and one beverage box. Their highest sales year was 2022-23 at $111,572. They’ve been the leader in sales since 2019 grossing $280,428 total from 2019 to January 2025. We felt it was time to share an update with their secrets to success.

About Rio Rancho

They are located in New Mexico with around 2,200 students in their school. Their Spirit Box vending activities are managed by the DECA Marketing Class. They have a team of six students that work on the Spirit Box vending machines and the school store. Each class has four students that work in their school store and two students work on the Spirit Boxes.

We had the opportunity to chat with Lucas, their Spirit Box Business Manager and Jason, the Spirit Box Team Advisor. In the interview Lucas and Jason shared their strategies, how they’re growing their sales, challenges they’ve faced, and provide ideas to help other Spirit Box schools take over the vending business in their schools.

ExperimentING

With any business, there are challenges to overcome. Sometimes ideas don’t pan out the way we hoped, or products just don’t sell. A great model that Rio Rancho exemplifies is the Lean Startup model. “The Lean Startup method teaches you how to drive a startup-how to steer, when to turn, and when to persevere-and grow a business with maximum acceleration. It is a principled approach to new product development” - (The Lean Startup). Rio Rancho exemplifies this by testing new products and strategies, pivoting into a new direction when something doesn’t do well, and continues to grow their business. Here are a few things Rio Rancho has tried and how they overcame the challenges along the way:

Testing an energy drink:

The drink didn’t fit well in the machine and wouldn’t vend properly, so they bought a beverage machine in 2021 to sell cold drinks. They sold $35,068 out of their beverage machine alone during the 2021-22 school year and $53,412 the following year. They have averaged $37,394 yearly in beverage sales.

Testing higher priced items:

The non-consumables such as apparel, didn’t sell well so they shifted to almost entirely food. Jason stated that 60-70% of the school is on free or reduced lunch, so higher priced items don’t sell as well. When they shifted to food their revenue increased rapidly and they became the top selling Spirit Box for 7 months straight November 2019 - May 2020. Today they

Buy small quantities of one product to see if it sells:

If it doesn’t sell well, they won’t restock it and if it does, they will then buy larger quantities. They take a low risk investment by trying out a new product. This helps you weed out products that won’t sell before buying in large quantities.

Growing the Business Over Time

Rio Rancho launched two machines in 2019 with $17,384 in sales. By year three, they added a beverage box which grew sales to $63,191– **a 263% increase**. By year four, they became a well-oiled machine, growing another 76% to hit $111,572 in total sales in 2022-23.

Rio Rancho’s team knows what sells and what doesn’t after doing the initial research and testing products when they started the Spirit Box in 2019. They now restock their machine regularly with what sells and have one tray for experimenting new products.

In the first few years; they took risks, asked students what they wanted in the machine, surveyed students, and tried out a variety of products. They began to understand who their target market was and what they wanted to buy.

Currently, in 2024-25’ they are averaging around $301 in sales per school day. “There are times where we refill our Spirit Boxes before lunch and other days where we need to refill it again after lunch,” states Jason, Rio Rancho Spirit Box Advisor. At times, keeping our machines fully stocked can be a challenge.

To accommodate demand Rio Rancho added two additional vending machines in 2021, a snack box and a beverage box to increase sales and reduce the need to restock the machines as frequently. Consumables tend to sell better at their school so they are growing this part of their market.

Successful Strategies

Rio Rancho has created a variety of strategies in order to encourage customers to purchase from them:

Marketing:

Intercom Announcements
Posters around school
Social media: Rio Rancho Instagram

Convenience:

Almost everything is a dollar in their Spirit Box
Consumable products
- Available to after school programming

Selling Strategy:

What they sell in their school store is not in their Spirit Box and vice versa. This causes movement in both stores rather than just one of them
Limited time (temporary) products in the machine

Disrupting Vending in School

A new idea that has been floating around the Spirit Box community is disrupting the vending market as we know it in schools by taking over the full vending contract. What exactly does this mean? It means your Spirit Box team competes to be your school’s exclusive vending machine. Rio Rancho has done just that! Now they operate the only vending machines at their school. This means all vending sales AND profit go to their programs instead of an outside company. This direction will help grow their Spirit Box business drastically.

The best part? ALL of the money goes back to their team and their school.

The Evolution of Business

Rio Rancho is a prime example of the evolution of a business. There is gradual growth, trial and error, successes, and failures in any business. Businesses, like Rio Rancho’s Spirit Box, are successful because they learn from each part of their journey and pivot as needed. Rio Rancho has displayed forward thinking and a plan for where they want their Spirit Box business to go. We hope you take some of these tips and apply some of them to your own Spirit Box business.

It is important to note, if you are a new business, to not compare where your business is today to someone else’s. Don’t compare your today to another school’s yesterday. Every business came with struggles and while things may be going smoothly now, it took time and effort to get there. Good luck as you grow your Spirit Box and as always, we are here to support you! Have questions or want to chat? Reach out!

Rio Rancho’s Vending takeover