- Distributor
- Scallix, SHEKEL's WeightAI™ distributor for Canada
- Site
- DEV Hotel & Conference Centre, Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
- Challenge
- Guests needed food and beverages outside staffed hours; the hotel's cafe and standard vending couldn't cover the gap without adding headcount
- Solution
- Two SHEKEL WeightAI™ smart coolers, running 24/7 with no added staff
- Status
- Live since June; DEV is evaluating a front-desk mini-market and additional properties
"It really is a game changer. Everything I need is on the management console. I know what's selling, I know products are being stocked properly, and I have that information every morning before I even walk into the building. POS and PMS systems give you data, but nothing this specific. The impact on our guests has been nothing but positive, and it's given us something modern that no other facility in our market has. You pick the right location where people congregate, and it's a no-brainer."
Ian Bentley General Manager, DEV Hotel & Conference Centre
Hotel guests need round-the-clock access to food and essentials, and most hotel food and beverage operations aren't built for it:
A staffed cafe or reception desk covers food sales only during limited hours
A self-service kiosk still needs an employee to process every transaction
A guest who can't get what they need on-site leaves the building, and takes their spending elsewhere
DEV Hotel & Conference Centre ran into this directly. Its cafe operated a narrow morning window and needed a staff member at the counter, with demand inconsistent enough that on quiet stretches, staff left a bell on the counter for guests to ring.
The Solution
Scallix deployed two SHEKEL WeightAI™ smart coolers at DEV Hotel & Conference Centre: one dedicated to beverages, one to food, placed beside the hotel's existing coffee machine at the front of house. Every item sold is made in-house by DEV's own culinary team, and both coolers run 24/7 on card-only payment with no added staff.
In-House Assortment
- Fresh sandwiches, six varieties
- Cookies and baked goods
- Scones and breakfast wraps
- Beverages and hydration drinks
Daily Console Visibility
- What's selling, by product
- Whether staff are stocking correctly
- Restock timing and needs
- Purchasing-behavior detail beyond what the hotel's POS and PMS systems capture
Multi-item purchases are the norm rather than the exception: guests routinely pick up several products in a single visit. DEV's management team checks the console every morning, and the GM calls that daily visibility the real differentiator: information he says he doesn't get anywhere else in the property's existing systems.
The Impact
A payback DEV's GM modeled at 6 months going in arrived in roughly half that time, about 3 months.
Food cost across both coolers runs at about 40%, with no added headcount.
1,900 transactions logged across both coolers since the June launch.
On at least one morning, cooler sales alone captured breakfast demand the on-site restaurant would otherwise have lost entirely: guests who didn't want to wait for a table bought on their way past instead.
What Took Longer Than Expected
Onboarding took real effort before the coolers ran smoothly. DEV's culinary team adjusted recipes on the fly early on, swapping bread, changing how much meat went into a sandwich, without registering those changes in the system first. It took about two weeks of hands-on training before the team understood that any product change has to be reflected in the system for the data to hold.
What's Next
DEV is looking past its current two coolers:
- A front-desk mini-market format, extending the same self-service model to the lobby
- Additional units at other properties in the group
DEV's GM has one piece of advice for other hotel operators: if you're already paying someone to manage a standard vending machine, that's the easiest place to start, and the payback moves faster than most operators expect.
An unstaffed retail point only becomes a real revenue center when it comes with real visibility into what's selling and what needs restocking. DEV Hotel & Conference Centre is the proof point. That combination, autonomous fresh-food retail paired with real operational intelligence, is what SHEKEL's WeightAI™ technology is built to deliver: a faster path to ROI, without asking a hotel to add headcount to get there.
The Partnership Behind the Deployment
The success of the DEV Hotel deployment is the result of a strong partnership between DEV Hotel, local distributor Andrée Labée, Scallix and SHEKEL. Andrée Labée played a key role in bringing the opportunity forward, believing in the technology and introducing the solution to DEV. Scallix then worked closely with Andrée and the DEV team to support the implementation, combining local distribution with hands-on technical and operational expertise. From installation and system setup to product assortment and workflow adjustments, the teams worked together to ensure the solution was properly integrated into the hotel's operation and delivered the intended customer experience.
About SHEKEL
SHEKEL's WeightAI™ technology runs the deployment: accurate product identification and real-time inventory visibility built for fully unattended retail, turning underused space into a 24/7 revenue channel without adding staff.
About Scallix
Scallix is SHEKEL's WeightAI™ distributor for Canada, specializing in smart retail solutions for hospitality and other unattended environments. Scallix combines SHEKEL's smart-cooler technology with a hands-on approach to deployment, helping customers move quickly from an initial concept to a live pilot. From setup and testing to product assortment, workflows and ongoing optimization, Scallix works closely with customers to ensure the solution performs in the real-world environment.
