DALTON, Ga. - Denise Hudson picked as many four-leaf clovers as she could find when Plant manager Matt Hauke asked her to come into her job at Mohawk Industries early Monday for a meeting with her bosses.
"I honestly thought I might be fired," Hudson said Monday outside of the Dalton plant on South Hamilton Road.
Denise Hudson checks out her new Kia Soul Monday at Mohawk Industries in Dalton, Ga. Five Star gave away the car to end a retail promotion at micro market locations.
But when she got to work, she quickly found she not only still had a job, she had a new and better way to get to work. Hudson was the lucky winner of a 2017 Kia Soul after being chosen from among thousands of users of one of the Five Star Food Service micro market locations at the Mohawk plant.
Hudson, who has worked the night shift at Mohawk for the past three years, purchased one of the 30 items that qualified her to win the biggest prize given yet by the Chattanooga-based food vending operator.
"I'm very excited because we needed another vehicle so my husband can drive to work without me having to rush home to take him to work," Hudson said.
Hudson qualified to win with a late night purchase during her overnight work shift.
"I work the night shift so I sometimes need a boost," she said.
Mohawk was one of the first and remains one of the biggest users of Five Star's micro markets, which were introduced nearly seven years ago as an alternative to conventional coin- operated vending machines. In such micro markets, customers pick out the item they want from a broader selection of fresh and packaged foods and simply scan the items at a device that processes either credit card or cash payments and quickly tallies the food being purchased.
Users are preregistered so they can usually buy food items in a fraction of the time it takes to feed coins or dollar bills into regular vending machines.
"The micro markets are proving extremely popular because they can offer more and fresher foods and people can buy and pay for their items much faster," said Greg McCall, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Five Star.
McCall said the Kia car giveaway, which came complete with a $2,050 cash gift to pay taxes and registration fees on the new car, is one of about 40 giveaways Five Star does each year for customers of its micro markets.
"These promotions help build excitement and interest in our markets and hopefully increase sales," said Kevin Black, one of the sales managers for Five Star.
The latest promotion appears to have worked. McCall said sales of the food items included in the car giveaway contest jumped 55 percent when customers were told their purchases of those items would enter them in a contest for the Kia Soul.
Five Star has grown into the South's biggest independent food vending distributor through acquisitions of other vending machine and coffee companies, including Southern Coffee in Chattanooga earlier this year, and by expanding its service menu.
Five Star now operates 620 micro markets in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky. Such markets rely upon purchasers to scan their purchases, but on-site cameras ensure buyers pay for the item, McCall said.
"We have had really good success and it's much faster with fewer mechanical problems compared with coin-operated machines," McCall said.
Jerry Hendrix, vice president of human resources at Mohawk, said Five Star operates micro markets in about 20 of the company's plants and they have worked well for both meals and snacks for workers. The micro markets avoid the need for either expensive cafeterias or time- consuming trips away from the plant.
"They've been a good partner," Hendrix said of Five Star.
With nearly 1,000 employees and 14 branch locations, Five Star Food Service provides the breakfasts, lunches and snacks that power tens of thousands of workers at nearly 6,000 employers across the South. The company prepares and packages much of the food sold in its micro markets at its facility in Lafayette, Ga.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.