How a Practical Solution Became Push Beverages

Laurel Whitney, co-founder of Push Beverages, shares how a challenge in her family’s vending business evolved into a beverage company serving customers across the country.

Push Beverages did not begin with the goal of creating a beverage company looking to disrupt the soft drink industry. Instead, it started as a practical solution to a challenge faced by a successful vending operation, but ended up disrupting the soft drink industy anyway.

Today, Push Beverages distributes products in 48 states through Vistar locations, independent distributors, and cash-and-carry channels. The company offers a growing portfolio that includes traditional sodas, Chu-Chi juices, Push-2-O Water, and its newest launch, Simply Push. But the road to becoming a national beverage brand began inside a vending operation in the Northeast.

Solving an Operator Problem

Before Push Beverages existed, Laurel and her husband, Moti Almakias, operated one of the largest independent vending companies in the New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania region. The business served corporate, healthcare, and educational accounts through approximately 60 routes.

As beverage costs from major brands continued to rise, the company faced a difficult challenge. Many of its lucrative customer contracts were locked in for five years, making it difficult to absorb significant cost increases while maintaining profitability.

“We were getting much larger raises,” Laurel explained. “It wasn’t just a quarter or 50 cents. It was a dollar in January and then another increase a few months later.”

Rather than walking away from accounts or accepting shrinking margins, the team looked for another solution.

How Push Beverages Began

Around 2008, during the height of the economic downturn, Laurel noticed a shift in consumer behavior. Research suggested that consumers were becoming less loyal to brands and more focused on value and quality.

The team realized that while customers often preferred a specific cola brand, flavored sodas were a different story. Over the years, they had rotated between brands such as Fanta, Crush, and Sunkist without significant customer resistance.

With that insight, they decided to launch four flavors of their own soda.

The company’s name came from an unexpected source. During an after-hours team brainstorming session, Laurel’s young son suggested “Push” because customers push a button on a vending machine.

“We looked it up, and it was available,” she said.

The results exceeded expectations. Using line-item sales data from their machines, the team discovered that Push flavors sold at nearly identical rates to the products they replaced.

“We were pleasantly surprised to see that the same number of orange sodas sold when we put in Push.”

From Secret Weapon to National Brand

What started as a private-label solution soon attracted attention outside the company’s own operation.

Customers and strangers began calling to ask where they could buy Push products after seeing them in hospitals, government buildings, and other public locations. Local restaurants and retailers followed, and eventually other vending operators wanted access to the beverages as well.

Initially, Laurel resisted requests from distributors.

“This was our secret weapon,” she said. “We never wanted to be a beverage manufacturer. We were doing it just for our business.”

Eventually, Vistar convinced the company to begin distributing the products more broadly. Push quickly gained traction, with its pineapple flavor reportedly earning a spot among top-selling items in a Vistar market alongside established snack brands.

As demand expanded across the country, Push continued developing new flavors tailored to regional preferences, including a peach soda created specifically to meet demand from distributors in Georgia.

Choosing Beverages Over Vending

As Push grew, the company found itself balancing two successful businesses: vending operations and beverage manufacturing.

The success of the beverage brand eventually created a conflict. Operators who purchased Push products were often competitors in vending bids, making it increasingly difficult to maintain both sides of the business.

In 2013, Laurel and her husband sold their vending operation to Canteen and committed fully to growing Push Beverages.

“It was a little frightening,” Laurel admitted. “We were just dabbling in the beverage business. We didn’t know if it had full-time income potential. But we felt it was the right decision.”

More than a decade later, that decision appears to have paid off.

Built by Operators, for Operators

One of Push’s biggest advantages is its founders’ firsthand experience running routes, managing locations, and navigating razor-thin margins.

“We know their pain points,” Laurel said.

That operational background shapes how the company works with customers today. Rather than simply selling products, the team helps operators determine which flavors fit specific locations and how to introduce new products successfully.

Push has also become an option for operators looking to balance customer expectations with increasing product costs. Laurel noted that some operators use two-tier pricing strategies, offering national brands alongside better-priced alternatives.

By providing a lower-cost option without sacrificing flavor, operators can maintain margins while still giving consumers choices.

Opportunities in Micro Markets and Smart Coolers

While traditional vending presented challenges due to bottler-owned equipment, the growth of micro markets and smart retail technologies has opened new opportunities.

Laurel believes micro markets helped operators gain more control over product selection by encouraging ownership of coolers and equipment rather than relying solely on bottler programs.

Today, Push is also exploring opportunities in AI-powered retail. At the 2026 NAMA Show, the company showcased a Push-branded smart cooler developed in partnership with SandStar.

According to Laurel, the collaboration combines Push’s operator experience with SandStar’s technology expertise to create solutions that better meet the needs of unattended retail operators.

Introducing Simply Push

The company’s newest product line, Simply Push, officially launched on May 1 and made its debut at the 2026 NAMA Show.

The line was developed in response to growing consumer demand for cleaner ingredient labels and increased scrutiny around artificial additives.

Simply Push contains no artificial sweeteners and no food dyes. Instead, the beverages use a blend of monk fruit and cane sugar to create a smoother flavor profile.

“We wanted something that actually tastes good,” Laurel said. “Most other companies use stevia, which has a bitter taste that a lot of people don’t like.”

The launch generated significant interest at NAMA, with attendees sampling products that had come off the production line only days before the show.

An Unexpected Entrepreneurial Journey

Looking back, Laurel describes the creation of Push Beverages as something that happened almost by accident.

What began as a strategy to protect margins inside a vending company evolved into a national beverage brand distributed across the country.

It’s a story that highlights a recurring theme throughout the convenience services industry: operators often understand market needs better than anyone else because they live those challenges every day.

As Laurel joked near the end of the interview, “You can accidentally find a beverage company.”