PICTURED: Tommy Robb, Thomas Smith and Tracey Graham receive the award from Jim Walker.
As Abercromby Vending lands ‘Best Retailer’ in the Glasgow Airport Business Awards, PV Editor Ian Reynolds-Young finds himself wondering what Tracey, Thomas and their ever-growing team will accomplish next…
In what seems like just a couple of years, Abercromby Vending has risen from the East End of Glasgow to take its place as one of the UK’s pre-eminent food-at-work businesses, thanks largely to the company’s commitment to promoting healthy eating options, which have attracted national interest. Brother and sister act, Tracey Graham and Thomas Smith, started the business just 11 years ago, to address what they saw as ‘a gap in the vending dispensing market.’ The caterer and the vending engineer joined forces to form Scotland’s first fresh food vending company.
A major breakthrough for Abercromby came when it was awarded the vending contract for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Speaking to Tracey at the time, it seemed she’d reached the point where life was ‘as good as it gets’. She told me: ‘It’s a fantastic achievement for an company to be asked to participate in a genuine ‘once in a lifetime’ event, but this is extra-special for Thomas and me, because we’re from the East End ourselves and we feel as though it’s our games. We started the company with next to nothing, not too long ago, so to be chosen to represent our industry in our city, in an event of such magnitude, is really humbling.’
And then, just when they thought it couldn’t get any better…
‘The Glasgow Airport Awards, ach!’ Thomas Smith
‘The Glasgow Airport Awards, ach!’ says Thomas, with a rueful shake of his head. ‘It’s a really big event, there’s more than 500 people in the audience at the Radisson Blu in Glasgow, all the great and the good…’
This particular story began a couple of years ago, when Abercromby took over vending at Glasgow Airport. Previously, there had been four operators serving the airport, but with the appointment of Abercromby, there’d be just the one. The transition was smooth and the results impressive. ‘We were advised to compete for an award in the category of Best Newcomer’, Thomas tells me. He was skeptical, though: ‘We’ve found that it’s very difficult to earn recognition or win awards that are not specifically focused on the vending industry…’
However, Thomas and Tracey took a pragmatic view. It promised to be an opulent evening and the event was important to the client, so a table at the awards ceremony was duly bought and paid for. They didn’t expect to win: in fact, they were delighted that their application made the short list. ‘The feedback was the best thing of all’, Thomas said. ‘We heard that management had seriously considered withdrawing vending machines, full-stop. I was very proud to be told by Amanda McMillan, the airport CEO, that our efforts had ‘turned vending around’. It was a good feeling to have achieved something not just for us, but for the whole of the vending industry.’
It’d been a fabulous occasion, too; so when, a year later, it was suggested that Abercromby entered in the category of ‘Best Retailer’ for the 2016 Awards, Thomas was philosophical. ‘Once again, we were happy to book a table in support of our client’s event and we knew we’d have a really good time, but we didn’t really hold out any hope of winning the award. Our application was nothing more than a couple of paragraphs’, he admits.
You can understand why ‘the locals’ felt that they were making up the numbers in the awards: they shared the shortlist with Boots, JD Wetherspoon and World Duty Free…
World Duty Free’ v ‘Abercromby Vending’ sounds about as one-sided as Goliath v David!’ Thomas Smith
‘I mean, ‘World Duty Free’ v ‘Abercromby Vending’ sounds about as one-sided as Goliath v David’, Thomas laughs, ‘so you can imagine our absolute shock and horror when we won it!’ Before they really knew what had hit them; Tracey, Thomas and Tommy Robb – the static operator responsible at the airport ‘coal face’ – were on the stage, shaking the hand of Jim Walker of NCP Car Parks, (the award sponsor) and collecting silverware.
Looking back, Thomas admits that in the lead-up to the presentation of the award, a hint or two had been dropped, along the lines of ‘it’s not about the size of the company, it’s about the impact it has on the airport environment’, but at the time…
Hints notwithstanding, ‘there were a few big-wigs scratching their heads and wondering who we were’, Thomas remembers with a chuckle.
The electoral college for the awards consists solely of Glasgow Airport staff and executives and clearly, they’re not based on sales figures. On the contrary, to win one of these awards, the impact you’ve had and the difference you’ve made to the airport, as a company, are the key criteria.
‘Amanda McMillan is listed as being one of the ‘Top 100 Influential People in Scotland’, and she told us face-to-face that we’d ‘absolutely transformed vending at the airport”, Thomas says, (obviously hoping that she tells the other 99 about Abercromby); and ‘François Bourienne, the airport’s Commercial Director said he thought our ‘commitment to the task was superb’. Apparently, he walked round the whole airport on the busy Sunday during the October school break and personally tested every machine. He found every single one filled and working and he told us that they were ‘an absolute credit’ to us.’
‘If you’re good enough, you’re big enough’. That’s what my school football coach used to say to the more diminutive lads back in the day. He might have been thinking about Abercromby Vending. You do have to wonder what Tracey, Thomas and their ever-growing team will accomplish next…
