Vending Operator Ed Baddour Becomes Bottler To Meet Federal Guidelines For School-Friendly Drinks

EYE CATCHER:Ed Baddour (l.), Bill Toler and Ed Baddour Jr. (r.) showcase boldly branded Fruit Wave H20 vending machine designed to make a splash as Smart Snacks in School-compliant beverage line expands nationwide.

"When we knew that Gatorade, Fruitworks and Fruitopia soon wouldn't meet the criteria of what we would be able to put in our machines, we also knew we couldn't find an appealing replacement," he recalled.

So the longtime operator of Dunkirk, MD-based Royalle Dining Services, serving the Metropolitan Baltimore-Washington area, took the matter into his own hands and formulated Fruit Wave H2O, his own all-natural flavored water. Baddour also invented a vend-friendly clear 12-fl.oz. container with aluminum lid, called the "Cottle."

Unable to find anyone to produce his novel "plastic can," Baddour partnered with fellow vending pro Tom DiNardo of Culinary Ventures Vending (Union, NJ) to form Triple Ventures LLC. They hired a plastics engineer and a machinery engineer to devise a method for manufacturing the Cottle package.

They then bought a full bottling line that they assembled in Miami, where Baddour came out of his short-lived retirement to oversee the operation.

Fruit Wave H20 made a big splash in the Maryland market and has since established a prominent place in the school vending machines which Royalle manages. Its distribution is expanding into several other states, too.

"We began selling Fruit Wave to schools in the 2012 school year and replaced one for one the sales we would have lost to the drinks we were no longer allowed to vend," Baddour recalled. Sales to the Baltimore County district totaled 40,000 cases in its first year on market, he reported.

Fruit Wave H2O is available in six flavors and meets the federal Smart Snacks in School guidelines that went into effect in July 2014. It has only 60 calories per container, in its sugar and stevia sweetened formulation, and zero calories in the all-natural monk fruit-sweetened variety, introduced earlier this year. Triple Ventures was also issued a patent in February that gives it exclusive rights to the Cottle container's design for 14 years.

Baddour's three sons, Ed Jr., John and Mike, now run the 22-route Royalle Dining Services that he founded in 1991, allowing him to pursue the bottling venture full time. Ed Jr. is also a partner in Triple Ventures.

In building their bottling plant, the Triple Ventures partners planned for enough capacity to provide not only for their own vending companies, but also to accommodate anticipated demand from other vending operators who must comply with federal Smart Snacks in School nutritional guidelines.

Several large school buying groups have approved Fruit Wave H2O, the most prominent of which are in New York, Florida, Maryland and California. A Texas buying group is the most recent state to give Fruit Wave its stamp of approval, joining Tennessee, Arkansas, New Jersey and Virginia. The beverage line has also earned a spot in the Vendors Supply catalog, which has reportedly spurred vending sales.

Another big boost came in March when Triple Ventures entered into an integrated distribution agreement with Whitlock Packaging Corp.; the two companies supply each other's products to schools for vending, a la carte sales and reimbursable meal programs. Whitlock's Juice Bowl 100% juice is a well-established brand in national school foodservice programs.

"Juice Bowl and Fruit Wave H20 shared many customers," Ed Baddour said. "Combining efforts made good sense for both organizations. Whitlock integrated Fruit Wave into their sales system, and national broker network. It has already set up more than a dozen brokers to sell the line."

As part of the partnership, Triple Ventures co-packs Juicebowl's 12-fl.oz. sparkling juice in standard aluminum cans at its Miami plant. Production facilities in New Jersey, Oklahoma and Florida (Lakeland and Miami), provide national coverage and capacity for both companies' school drink products.

Ed Baddour now devotes much of his time to developing new brands for schools. The latest is a low-calorie tea. Tas T launched in April in the Cottle container, of course.

The Miami bottling plant has three lines that handle hot-seal glass and cans and cold-seal cans. The plant's high-speed capacity can bottle six million cases annually, exceeding Fruit Wave and Tas T's requirements. So Triple Ventures maximizes this capacity by co-packing for other beverage companies. They bottle about 75,000 12-fl.oz. slim cans a month of Titan Natural Focus for the Miami-based maker of the energy drink.

They also co-pack a line of nectar drinks in glass 1-liter and 8.5-fl.oz. bottles. "There was a vacuum in the Miami market for co-packing of nectar drinks, since a lot of product comes from overseas," Ed Baddour Jr. told VT. "We picked up local distributors and serve 40,000 cases a month to Winn-Dixie and Publix supermarkets of that product line alone."

As for their own flagship beverage line, the new school year marks a new round of growth as they continue to establish the Fruit Wave H2O brand and schools and the operators that serve them seek appealing drinks that meet Smart Snacks in School guidelines.

Overall, Triple Ventures' founders say they're on target to bottle one million cases in 2016, including their own beverages and those they co-pack for other drink companies.

MADE IN MIAMI:Vend-friendly Fruit Wave H2O in signature "plastic cans" (far left) whips off production line at Triple Ventures' Miami plant. With high-speed capacity to bottle six million cases annually, Triple Ventures also co-packs for several other beverage makers.