The Partnership
365 Retail Markets, the unattended retail technology company supporting nearly 40,000 operators nationwide, has inked a multi-year agreement with ColdSnap to distribute the company's on-demand frozen treat machines across its micro market network. The deal opens a high-margin frozen-beverage and frozen-dessert category to workplace and institutional locations that have historically lacked the cold-chain infrastructure to support it.
ColdSnap's patented platform freezes shelf-stable, room-temperature pods into ice cream, smoothies, frozen lattes, and protein shakes in roughly two minutes at the point of purchase. Because the product never contacts the machine directly, the unit requires no cleaning cycle, no plumbing hookup, and no refrigerated storage — a meaningful operational advantage for micro market operators managing dispersed, unattended locations.
Why It Matters for Operators
For micro market operators, frozen treats have long been a category gap. Traditional soft-serve or hard-ice-cream equipment demands cold-chain logistics, daily sanitation, and reliable utilities — requirements that rule out most workplaces, hospital break rooms, college campus kiosks, manufacturing floors, and distribution centers. ColdSnap's pod-based model sidesteps all of that: pods ship and store at ambient temperature, eliminating cold-chain cost and shrinkage risk entirely.
Jeff Dumbrell, Chief Revenue Officer at 365 Retail Markets, framed the appeal plainly: operators on the network are looking to drive more revenue per location and lift client satisfaction without layering in operational complexity. Adding a frozen category that was "previously out of reach for unattended retail" checks both boxes, he said.
Mathew Fonte, Founder and CEO of ColdSnap, noted that locations without freezers or cold-chain logistics have simply been locked out of premium frozen treats — until now. Deploying through 365's infrastructure, he said, puts ColdSnap machines into thousands of new locations in a compressed timeframe.
Rollout and Network Scale
ColdSnap will begin placing machines through the 365 network over the course of the multi-year agreement; neither company disclosed a unit target or deployment timeline. The scale potential is considerable: 365 Retail Markets, which folded in Cantaloupe Inc.'s payments, telemetry, and device network following its May 2026 acquisition, now reaches close to 40,000 operators across micro markets, vending, foodservice, hospitality venues, transit hubs, and corporate and education campuses.
For the broader unattended retail channel, the deal reflects a continuing push to close the category gap between micro markets and traditional foodservice and convenience formats. Dispensed beverage and frozen novelty programs have been growth levers in staffed c-store foodservice for years; bringing a credible frozen-treat SKU set into self-service settings — with no back-of-house labor attached — gives operators a new tool to lift basket size and dwell-time satisfaction at accounts that would never consider a full foodservice program.
The partnership also signals where micro market technology is heading: platform deals that layer new revenue categories onto existing operator networks, rather than asking operators to source, install, and maintain standalone equipment themselves. For single-store operators and regional chains evaluating unattended retail, that kind of turnkey category expansion is increasingly the pitch.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
