CRANE Announces SureVend

Crane Co. (NYSE:CR) announced that Crane Merchandising Systems has introduced its SureVendT guaranteed vending feature. SureVendT is the Guaranteed Product Delivery mechanism that eliminates the aggravation and disappointment of not receiving your vending product. SureVendT will be a standard feature on all of National Vendors' spiral machines beginning August, 2001. It will be available as a separate retrofit kit for most recent model spiral merchandisers as well.

"Customers have long been inconvenienced when the product would not vend after they made their selection," said Bret Plumer, Vice President, Sales, Crane Merchandising Systems. "Compound that with the frustration of losing their money in the machine as well, and it's one of the biggest problems for customers in our industry. We are pleased that we can offer the SureVendT feature to guarantee that a customer either gets his product, or gets his money back."

The process has been designed so that should a product get 'caught up' while dispensing, the SureVendT feature will attempt to vend the selection three times. If the sensor does not detect that a product has been dropped, the customer's money is automatically refunded.

"This feature is a plus to our operators as well," added Plumer. "No more credit vouchers because of misloading or product hang-ups. And spirals return to the 'Home' position for the best visual product presentation," he noted.

A leader in the vending industry since first developing vending mechanisms in 1926, Crane Merchandising Systems was acquired by Crane Co. in 1985. No other company in the industry has devoted more financial resources to new product development. Crane Merchandising Systems competes globally, serving customers across North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim, with distribution networks throughout Mexico, South America, Australia, and China. Crane Co. is a diversified manufacturer of engineered industrial products.