For 50 years the Randolph-Sheppard Vending Program has meant employment and independence to the blind. Today, however, the programs and its vendor members face severe changes in the business environment that threaten the long term economic stability of many individual operators and perhaps the entire program. This new business environment features intensified competition from the private sector, increasingly short term governmental occupancy of host buildings, fluctuating government agency employment bases, and changing customer preferences.Phase I research will define the nature of the problems experienced by the vendor operators and classify those problems according to the causal factors involved. It is believed that a majority of the problems will relate directly to the business environment.It is hypothesized that the problems identified and classified can be alleviated by applying innovative equipment technologies and new food service marketing programs and product concepts at the vendor facilities.Phase I research will identify equipment, marketing, and product innovations that hold promise in solving the problems found. These elements will be investigated and tested to determine the potential success that implementation will yield. Phase I research will conclude with the development of a strategy for implementation of the research findings. Anticipated Results and
Potential Commercial Applications: Phase I research will delineate the operating problems confronting the Randolph-Sheppard vendor businesses. The research will identify new equipment types, and food service marketing and product concepts that can be used to overcome the problems found. Phase I research will also present and test a strategy for implementing the research findings. Phase II research will involve continued analysis and actual demonstration implementation of the strategies from Phase I. This implementation will serve both as a demonstration as a source of empirical data to justify the commercialization of the recommended strategies. Privately funded commercialization will follow successful demonstration. Key Words: Foodservice, Disability, Blindness, Marketing, Cooking, Vending, Rehabilitation, EquipmentTopic 7: Activities to Improve Function of Randolph-Sheppard Program Operators with Disabilities
