Dixie-Narco was a former brand of soda vending machines located in Williston, South Carolina owned by Crane Merchandising Systems.

History and description

Founded in Ranson, West Virginia, the company's production facilities were relocated to Williston in 1989. Formerly a subsidiary of Maytag, it is now a subsidiary of Crane Co., who also owns the Crane National, Glasco Polyvend Lektrovend (GPL), and Automatic Products (APi) brands. The company was an early adopter of employee-suggestion-driven cost savings, soliciting suggestions based on the Rucker "share of production" plan in the early 1960s that helped drive down manufacturing costs. In 2017, the Dixie-Narco, along with the National, GPL, and Automatic Products brands were retired in favor of the single Crane Merchandising Systems brand. The former Dixie-Narco glass front products are still produced today under the CMS brand.

Legal dispute with Donald Trump

In 1991, Dixie-Narco was involved in a legal dispute with Donald Trump before a Federal Bankruptcy Court related to Trump's Taj Mahal Casino. Dixie-Narco claimed that they were owed payment by Trump for 1,350 bill-changing machines they had supplied the casino with, and that the bond-holder approval necessary for Trump's Chapter 11 filing had been improperly solicited as Trump had told them that Dixie-Narco's claim for $6 million of the machines was "worthless". Trump also asserted that the machines had often broken down. The claim was settled with an offer of $2.4 million to be paid in increasing installments to Dixie-Narco, as well as the Taj Mahal returning 500 of the machines, in return for which Dixie-Narco withdrew their objection to Trump's Chapter 11 debt restructuring.

Current products

Glass front vending machines

Discontinued products

Conventional (stack) vending machines

Dixie Narco named their stack vendors by how many cans it would hold and a suffix denoting the series (no suffix meant an earlier single price machine), for example a 501E is an E-series vendor that had a capacity of 501 cans.

Glass front vending machines