The cold vault is one of the most visited and profitable points of purchase in a convenience store.

Most packaged beverages purchases are immediately consumed, making convenience the channel of choice for refreshments, according to the 2025 NACS Convenience Voices study. Packaged beverages also accounted for 18.7% of total in-store sales in 2025, according to preliminary NACS State of the Industry data.

There’s no doubt a functioning beverage cooler is of the utmost importance to convenience retailers. And nearly two years after most manufacturers made the required switch to R290 propane as a refrigerant, the cold vault hasn’t changed much. Recent equipment innovation, however, is turning the cooler door space into one of the best merchandising and marketing tools inside the store.

“The cooler itself, functionally, they’re all doing the same thing. … There’s not a lot to change,” said Danielle McMiller, vice president of foodservice sales and marketing at Structural Concepts, a food and beverage equipment manufacturer.

New tools to improve the spacing in a cooler or promote brands and campaigns, however, are providing retailers with additional ways to draw attention to new products, promotions and SKUs that bring in more sales margin and volume.

“Once a [refrigeration] unit is in place, the real opportunity lies in how it is evaluated through the eyes of the shopper,” said Farley Kaiser, senior director of culinary innovation for McLane Company’s McLane Fresh food and beverage division.

“Today’s most impactful innovations focus on how a cooler helps retailers grow higher‑margin categories like fresh grab‑and‑go meals, premium sandwiches, protein snacks, ready‑to‑drink beverages and seasonal or limited‑time offerings. Retailers are thinking more intentionally about how refrigeration can elevate and sell fresh and premium items,” said Kaiser.

Here’s a look at some of the new merchandising and marketing tools that are heating up the cold vault.

“Think Beyond the Equipment”

McLane Company helps its c-store customers get the most out of their cold vault and other refrigeration equipment.

“Does the unit simply hold product, or does it actively sell it? Lighting, sightlines, shelf optimization and curated assortments all play a role in turning refrigeration into a true merchandising opportunity,” Kaiser said. “A well-designed cooler should clearly communicate what’s fresh, what’s worth trading up for and what solves today’s eating occasion.”

McLane encourages retailers to think beyond the equipment itself and focus on how a cooler functions as part of their broader foodservice and merchandising strategy.

“A cooler that tells a clear story makes it easier for shoppers to understand the value proposition immediately,” Kaiser said. “If a shopper cannot quickly see what problem the cooler is solving for them, there is likely more that the unit could be doing to drive both margin and relevance.”

“We Need This Equipment to Be Smarter”

Of course, the worst thing that can happen to a cooler is a malfunction that stops it from doing its job.

Structural Concepts, which manufactures standalone coolers that rely on an ambient curtain to maintain internal temperature, is making its units “smarter.” Its new FreshWatch technology is a collection of sensors that monitor cooler operations throughout the day, according to McMiller, and alerts retailers to problems via an online dashboard.

McMiller said customers were asking for the equipment to be smarter by helping them understand when something is failing or has failed, how to troubleshoot and how to bring the case back into service faster. “We’re gathering 11 data points of information so that when that operator is alerted to a problem, and that data, which is now being brought up into the cloud in real time all the time, can assist with diagnosing much faster,” she said.

Through the use of AI, the system will allow for predictive analysis that senses when a problem may be on the horizon.

“The goal is the reduction of downtime, if there is one at all,” said Jason Zimmer, product manager and market analyst for Structural Concepts. “Using the data we receive from those sensors, we can help the user actually troubleshoot the [problem] and avoid a tech visit. It might be, ‘clean the filter’ or ‘have you done maintenance on the case?’ It could be just washing off the cooler, and you can do it yourself.”

FreshWatch will be included on select Structural Concepts equipment moving forward, with the service provided free of charge during the warranty period. Retailers will be able to subscribe to the service thereafter.

“The Future of Consumer Engagement With Beverage Is Digital”

Display Technologies, a Marmon Foodservice Technologies brand, debuted its Ice-Glide beverage merchandisers to the c-store channel during the 2025 NACS Show in Chicago.

The shelf organization solution boasts customizable and easy-to-maintain features, including snap-fit components and repositionable lane dividers for customizing plan-o-grams. “Ice-Glide is solely focused on gravity feeding and [providing] the flexibility to allow the merchandising of any sized packaged beverage,” said Dan Gatto, senior product manager, merchandising at Marmon Foodservice. “With a three- to four-minute store journey on average, [a c-store] isn’t a place where the consumer is going to browse. They know what they’re looking for, and you want to be able to present the product so that it’s visible, so that it’s accessible. You remove those barriers by having everything front of shelf so that you can pick your brand, your flavor, grab your bottle and let that door close behind you,” he said.

Moving forward, Gatto sees technology increasingly playing a larger role in cold vault sales as more and more services are merged into the cloud and through artificial intelligence.

“I believe that the future of consumer engagement with beverage is digital,” he said, noting retail media is amplifying video content throughout the store. “There’s lidar [light detection and ranging] now where you can put a camera out to see when someone comes in the vicinity of your cooler. … Brands can start measuring how long they hang out there. If it’s an in-and-out thing, does that mean that we’re doing a good job? Or [did they linger because] they’re enthralled by the media content that we played?” he said.

“We See the Digital Display Space in C-Stores Growing”

CSE Products brings Internet-of-Things (IoT) solutions to everyday products by placing a digital media screen in cooler door handles.

“This is part of the evolution of digital content. We’re part of that bigger evolution,” said Greg Miedema, owner and president of CSE Products.

“We’ve created a unique location for media. It’s in a location that gets high traffic, but it’s just part of a larger media opportunity,” he added, referring to the growing use of retail digital media in convenience stores. The handle, which Miedema said works as a retrofit on about 70% of cooler doors in the market, provides a 60 x 190-millimeter viewing area that can display graphics, photos and video in full color at 400 x 1280 pixels.

“We see the digital display space in c-stores growing,” Miedema said. “A cooler door is a piece of hardware first, and we’ve turned into a digital solution. It’s a new approach.”

“For the Consumer, It’s a Simpler Process”

iSEE Store Innovations is known for its suction-cup and other secondary product displays, but its latest innovation brings digital promotions to the cold vault and other areas of a store.

Zapli, launched at the 2025 NACS Show, is a small disc that sticks to a cooler door (or checkout counter or fuel pump) providing a new way for consumers to take advantage of promotions with just a tap of their phone.

“Most of the POP on a cooler is going to be a cling or a sticker on the cooler door,” said Tim Cuneo, director of sales at iSEE, noting that those clings often block the view into a cooler. “We came up with Zapli ... to replace the old fashioned QR code. This uses NFC technology, which takes a step or two out of the process and is more secure than a QR code.”

A promotional card posted on the Zapli unit advertises the promotion and encourages a tap of a customer’s smartphone. That tap opens a webpage that allows the customer to interact with a promotion immediately or engage with a rebate opportunity after checkout.

“For the consumer, it’s a simpler process,” Cuneo said. “With a QR code, you have to open your phone, scan the QR code, then click on a link. With the NFC technology, you simply put your phone up to [the Zapli unit], it identifies that link, and it takes you to that offering. That could be price-off, sweepstakes, whatever program the retailer or the brand is running.”

“If a Product Isn’t Seen, It Isn’t Sold”

Anthony International’s Infinity MAX Walk-In Cooler Doors help retailers create an elevated and convenient shopping experience. Featuring no mullions or vertical door rails, the Infinity MAX provides merchandise visibility and easy product accessibility, according to the company.

“The modern shopper eats with their eyes first. If a product isn’t seen, it isn’t sold,” said Margie Proctor, senior marketing and design manager for Dover Food Retail, the parent company of Anthony International. “By maximizing product visibility and minimizing framing, retailers can create a seamless wall of refreshment that enhances the overall store atmosphere.”

Extending Cooler Doors Beyond the Store

With much of the innovation around coolers happening beyond refrigeration, some manufacturers are looking beyond the traditional cold vault with an eye on electric vehicle charging sites or travel centers.

Structural Concepts’s Autonomous Retail Merchandiser (ARM), a refrigerated beverage and fresh-food vending unit, provides immediate payment and product delivery that also reduces employee involvement. “The customer can do everything themselves [and] faster,” said McMiller.

Meanwhile, KPS is bringing the cold vault out to the forecourt with RefreshRecharge. The platform provides outdoor coolers that can be customized to fit a fueling site, and closed and locked after hours with a pulldown security door.

Both companies are also targeting EV charging sites. Zimmer noted that ARM can help retailers “pull in more customers, even after hours to sell more product while people are using charging stations.”

Johnny Wood, national account man­ager c-stores at KPS Global, said that RefreshRecharge is “positioned to meet the rising demand for convenience at EV charging stations, where customers have more dwell time.”

Cold Vaults for the Win

The innovation happening in and around c-store cold vaults is part of an ongoing consolidation of services and equipment with media, marketing and analytics. This will be an endpoint for all c-store tech, according to Kaiser at McLane Co.

“When refrigeration is integrated into a thoughtful category strategy, it becomes a driver of profit growth rather than simply a piece of equipment,” she said.

And that’s a strategy retailers can warm up to.