As new operators jump on board, Naturals2Go is showing them the way

The numbers are impressive: Naturals2Go has helped 2,500 new operators get started since 2009, placing 40,000 machines. And, according to the company, they have a 14% market share. Vending is a hot business, and from all indications, it is now a meaningful part of the gig economy.

In this episode of Automatic Merchandiser’s Vending & OCS Nation, the podcast for the convenience services industry, produced by Endeavor Business Media, a Division of EndeavorB2B, host Bob Tullio talked to Natali Pupovac-Peters, head of global operations at Naturals2Go Healthy Vending.

Naturals2Go is a company that appears to be taking an extremely responsible approach to introducing the convenience services business to people who are attracted to the business opportunity.

She takes us behind the scenes and pulls back the curtain on their fast-growing operation — talking about their role as an operator, a seller of business opportunity, an equipment manufacturer and a company that is doing all they can to support new operators while keeping their expectations in check. All the while, making sure their operators understand that convenience services are not some magical “passive income” business.

Be sure to subscribe to Vending & OCS Nation in your favorite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

No time to listen? Prefer to read? Here is an edited podcast transcript:

One thing that has been very obvious at industry conventions — whether it be the NAMA show, the Coffee, Tea & Water show, or even regional gatherings like ACE, the Atlantic Coast Exposition — is the influx of new operators.

For some, convenience services — vending in particular — have become part of the gig economy. Those TikTok videos showing vending operators with fistfuls of cash and the promise of vending being a passive income business — that’s pretty attractive.

On today’s episode, I’m talking to Natali Pupovac-Peters, head of global operations at Naturals2Go, a company that appears to be taking an extremely responsible approach to introducing the convenience services business to people who are attracted to the business opportunity.

Let me set the table for the interview by giving you some facts about Naturals2Go, provided to me by Pupovac-Peters. The company started in 1988 as an operator of gumball machines — you know, the U-turn-it machines. Today, the company is owned by Heath Falzarano, who is president as well.

Today, they are an established full-line operator. That division of the company is called Naturals2Go Plus, and they currently have branches in Pennsylvania; in Savannah, Ga.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Tulsa, Okla.; and El Paso, Texas. More are on the way, according to Pupovac-Peters.

The business opportunity division kicked off in 2009. It is called Naturals2Go, and they have helped 2,500 individuals get started and 40,000 machines on the street: A14% overall market share, according to Pupovac-Peters. They have what Pupovac-Peters calls a boots-on-the-ground and in-house sales team to help operators find qualified locations.

Naturals2Go had a huge presence at the 2025 NAMA show as an exhibitor, and they are active in NAMA advocacy efforts such as the Fly-In. The company’s Ventech division is their equipment manufacturing arm — everything from vending machines to micro markets to VMS systems. Between their own operating entity and the network of operators in their program, Pupovac-Peters said, they have landed some national accounts, including a large car dealership group, and they are pursuing more.

As a long-time operator myself, I had plenty of experience meeting people who had entered the vending business, ushered in by entities that did not have good intentions in mind, and were certainly not concerned about whether or not the operator was successful. No reflection on Naturals2Go by any means, but I started the interview pulling no punches. It was not a surprise to Pupovac-Peters.

You know, as an operator, I would go into locations — and this has nothing to do with Naturals2Go — but there are a lot of folks out there that are putting different models like this together or models that loosely follow what you folks are doing. And I would go into locations, and you’d have this location, and the machines were sitting there empty. They’re machines that I personally would never have purchased in a million years because they were U-turn-it type machines, that type of thing. Then ultimately I was told, you know, that the operator just abandoned the equipment because the sales weren’t there was misrepresented.

Bob Tullio: So, you know, there’s been a lot of criticism — not of your company — but of people who are involved in ushering people into the vending business. Tell me what the difference is. What really sets your company apart? Tell me why people should turn to Naturals2Go with confidence, and what really the differentiator is?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: That’s a great question. And I will start with a little story, actually, kind of going back to prior to getting into this world myself. So, when I originally learned about Naturals2Go, I actually considered becoming an operator myself. And the only reason I didn’t is because they weren’t available in Canada yet. And I remember mentioning this to my partner in the recruitment business.

And she said, “No, no, no, I know somebody that went into that business. Don’t do it. You know, he said he will never go back to that business again because he had such a bad experience.”

And I asked, “Well, why? What happened?”

And my business partner told me that he said he’d bought a bunch of vending machines, thought this was going to be a great idea. And then what happened is they just sat in his garage for a long time, or he placed them in places that just didn’t make money — the way that somebody promised him that they would. So exactly what you’re talking about, Bob.

It’s interesting because I totally understood where she was coming from, but I could see how Naturals2Go was different.

You know, vending is one of those businesses that I think people just thought, “This was an easy business to get into.” And it is — if you know what to do and if you have somebody guiding you along the way. So, I think that the big difference with Naturals2Go, well, it’s a few things. One, it really is that business in a box and we have all the support to make sure that somebody is going to succeed as long as they put the effort into it.

Don’t get me wrong, no business is going to be successful if you don’t put in the work. We really do provide that one-stop shop. Anything that you need, you can get from Naturals2Go, whether that’s service, whether that’s different types of machines, whether that’s tech support, telemetry support, whatever it is, we can provide it right inside Naturals2Go, which is really nice. So we’re able to take people from the point of not knowing anything about the business to the point of running a $20 million operation.

We have experience because we were operators ourselves or we are operators ourselves, I should say. We’re not just people that learn about the business through other people. We know about it because we’re in it ourselves. So that’s the one big differentiator.

Two, this company and one of the things that really attracted me to this company, is the people and the focus on people.

I say that because I remember when I first started, and my first task was actually to create the account management team. And I remember coming up with the plan and saying this is what I would do. And I said, “OK, here’s the ideal scenario, but here’s the cost-efficient scenario.”

And I remember [company president] Heath [Falzarano] looked at me and he was like, “Tell me what the best thing is for us to do for our operators. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care about the bottom line. I care about what’s best for the operator. If it’s the right thing to do for the operators, then just do it. The money will come. The money will follow.”

It’s that focus on the operator that’s put us to where we are. We’ve had some amazing hockey stick growth, as we call it, over the last several years. And I think it’s because of that focus on people, both from us caring about our operators and then also teaching our operators to care about their customers. So, one of the things that Heath likes to do in training is ask the operators, “Who here is now in the vending business?”

And so many people put up their hand, and he says, “No, no, you’re in the people business that just happens to be in snacks and beverages.”

Service is king. This industry hasn’t always provided very good service. And you know, you’ve been in it for a long time — or you were — and it doesn’t always have the best reputation because people just abandoned their machine because they leave them sitting empty. We don’t do that. And we really train our operators to not do that. Because if you do this business properly, you can create a really great business for yourself.

Bob Tullio: Training is a big part of it. Talk to me a little bit more about that.

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Training is probably one of the biggest parts of it. And it’s actually where my experience was in the corporate world before I went out on my own was in training and development.

So, even when I joined Naturals2Go and I didn’t know vending, and I was trying to learn my way through vending, training I knew. My first day I went to an operator training that used to be held in Buffalo. I went to it and I went, oh, this is, it’s great, but it could be so much better.

We really turned the training upside down on its head a couple of months after I came. So, my first task was the account management team. My second task was the training. We receive absolute rave reviews from the training that we hold every six weeks in Savannah. It’s two days of hands-on, of experiences, [and] of storytelling. And it’s something that we put a lot of pride into because it’s setting people up for success. That training makes all the difference.

They’re going to forget 90% of what they learn in that training. So how do we support them after training? Because nobody can learn the business in two days and be successful. It’s about the ongoing support. So all our trainers have also been operators themselves. So they’re teaching from experience, which makes a big difference.

Bob Tullio: Talk to me about the channels of business that a Naturals2Go operator can get into. Obviously, vending is the core. Micro markets?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Bob Tullio: Smart markets at this point?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Absolutely.

Bob Tullio: Being manufactured by you guys?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: No, so we don’t manufacture our own smart markets right now, but we’re very picky with who we partner with. So, we only partner with the best out there.

Our micro markets we do manufacture on our own. So it’s something that we just started doing earlier this year. I think people start in vending and with the vending machines because that’s the simple route. That’s the easiest route to really learn the business.

And I do recommend it because once you go to micro markets, that’s a different kind of business. It’s not something that you can do as a part-time gig. It is a full-time investment. So, it is a fantastic one out there, and you’re going to be making three or four times the amount that you do from a vending machine. So I think the opportunity is fantastic, and it’s something that we encourage our operators to do, and many of them have gone down that route very successfully.

Some just don’t have interest because it’s a different type of investment both not only financially but also timewise.

Bob Tullio: What about coffee service?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Yeah, coffee service is something that we do. I told you, Bob, we’re a one-stop shop. We do just about everything out there, and coffee service is actually one that I hope we can grow over the next several years because I think there’s a huge opportunity.

But again, it’s just, requires a lot more maintenance and a lot more attention than a vending machine does. Again, it has to be the right operator. And we have operators out there that do it all. They have the vending, the micro markets, the coffee, pantry services, and AI coolers; they do it all, and they do it really well.

And then we have ones that go, know what? Everything else scares me. Let me stick to the vending machines. That’s okay, too.

Bob Tullio: What percentage of your, you say 2,500 operators you’ve ushered into the business. What percentage of those operators are full-time, and what percentage of those operators would you say are kind of doing it on a gig basis?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: I don’t know how accurate of a number I can give you. I actually haven’t done the analysis, if I’m being completely honest. But I’d say the majority of them come into the business wanting to be full-time, but they come in kind of dipping their toes in the water.

Bob Tullio: Sure.

Natali Pupovac-Peters: They start with four, five, six, maybe 10 machines — something that they can run part-time and between a couple of people on the side of their full-time job. And many of them have the goal of quitting their full-time job and doing vending full-time, getting into the unattended retail space.

And I would say that it’s interesting when we do connect with operators, even at NAMA, we connect with some operators that were able to make that dream come true. And I think a lot of them do, but again, it takes the time and investment — both financial and time-wise — in order to make that happen.

Bob Tullio: It’s not a franchise operation, but how does Naturals2Go make money?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: We make very little money on the initial purchase. Of course, you know, the initial purchase, that’s one way. But really, our focus and our desire are to help operators grow. That’s where we end up making the money is when they come back and they buy more machines from us. Primarily up until now, we’ve made money from people coming into the business, people growing their business. So that’s why it’s so important for us to provide good service, good training and ongoing support and service because we want people to come back and buy from us because that’s how we make money.

Similar to our franchise, unless our franchisees — or our operators, in this case — make money, we don’t make money.

Bob Tullio: Okay, so it’s related a lot to equipment sales.

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Yes, at this point it is.

Bob Tullio: The number one business killer out there is lack of capital. Do you vet operators when they come in to see if they have the capability to stand on their own two feet financially? And what kind of financial support does your company offer?

Natali Pupovac-Peters: Everybody’s focus is, know, do you have the working capital? Because as much as this is a simple business, and it can be a very fruitful business to be in, it doesn’t happen overnight. And it is something that we try to be very candid about and make sure that people have the right working capital to get into the business. Because, like you said, that’s a very quick way to kill the entrepreneurial spirit, and to kill a business, is by bootstrapping it so much that now you have very little wiggle room.