AEV: interview with Nuno Morais, the purchasing director of AEV

Agrupación Empresas Vending has more than 35 years of experience and is one of the leading companies in its sector. It was founded in 1985 by Manuel Millán and is currently part of the Gimoka Group. AEV distributes the various vending machines in Spain and Portugal. Among their range are brands like Dr. Coffee and Bianchi coffee machines, Manea vending snack and drink machines, smart locker systems and water dispensers.

Gimoka Group is one of the main roasteries in Italy in terms of volume of raw coffee processed annually. Founded in the 1980s. The Group has 3 production sites located around Andalo Valtellino. There are 27 highly automated production lines, not to mention the assembly and packaging lines. And the Group also has 3 logistics warehouses covering an area of over 9,000 m2.

In 2022, SmVend first communicated with AEV about implementing a payment solution for specific models of Dr. Coffee machines. The challenge was that not all machines from the range have MDB protocol and the implementation of any external equipment becomes almost impossible, but not for SmVend. Soon after we sent the controller for testing, AEV invited us to visit their office and meet not only the team, but also participate in a corporate meeting with the manufacturers of Dr. Coffee machines!

At the meeting we introduced the SmVend controller, which acts as an intermediary between the machine and POS, providing an option to add cashless payments to any model of Dr. Coffee machine. This caused an absolutely winning reaction from the Dr. Coffee and AEV teams.

We are currently working on several projects together:

• Implementation of SmVend solutions in Dr. Coffee machines
• Integration with snacks machines
• Customization of solutions specifically for water dispensers

As well, AEV is becoming the official distributor of SmVend in Spain, and we are ready to extend the geography of cooperation.

During our last meeting in Madrid, we used a chance and recorded a short video about the development plans and challenges of SmVend and AEV. The full-length video is available on the SmVend YouTube channel, and the short one you can watch below. We are looking forward to your reactions and questions.