Edible and Sustainable

Blue Star Refreshments is an office refreshment service provider located in Silicon Valley that has made the commitment to go green. They offer complete office refreshment services including coffee, snack, dairy products, fresh fruit, baked goods, and catering services, with an emphasis on a low carbon footprint, energy savings, less waste, and healthier snacking through their Healthy Snack Program.

The people at Blue Star understand that simply offering ‘green’ products is not enough. They avidly promote energy saving techniques and help companies big and small develop an effective ‘green strategy’. This aspect of their business makes them not only an office refreshment service provider, but also an environmental consultant for many of their customers. They have even been able to save their customers money by offering new vending machines that reduce energy consumption by an average of 35-45%.

Their practices have helped them become a credible company. Blue Star is also a certified Green Business from Santa Clara County Green Council.

The Next Level of Vending Machines

Blue Star Refreshments makes their vending machines more appealing to potential customers by promoting energy saving technologies that reduce operation costs for their customers.

To save energy costs, Blue Star Refreshments has retrofitted their vending machines with LED lights instead of halogens. Along with saving energy, LEDs are typically replaced every 8 years instead of every 11 months like halogens, which also decreases Blue Star’s maintenance costs. Another implemented technology, VendingMiser®, powers down the vending machine when traffic is reduced, monitors the room’s temperature to consume the least amount of energy necessary, and automatically re-powers the cooling system at one to three hour intervals to ensure the product stays cold.

In late 2009 Blue Star started a trial run of wirelessly updating vending machine levels. In the past, an employee was required to drive out and visually check, and refill if needed. It is estimated that by implementing the wireless updates, Blue Star will have a 12% reduction in labor, 20% reduction in deliveries, and 20% reduction in truck payloads; this will save not only time and gas, but most importantly money!

A Green Office is a Happy Office

Blue Star Refreshments not only promotes green products and practices, but they have gone green at the office, too. The office has installed low flow technologies in all their bathrooms, reduced the frequency of washing company vehicles by 50% to conserve water, replaced all light bulbs with energy efficient light bulbs, and retrofitted all HVAC systems with digital automatic thermostat controls to regulate the temperature throughout the day. Blue Star also uses Energy Star appliances and the latest intelligent power saving technologies to reduce energy usage.

"We continue to promote and install energy efficient technology in all of our equipment, including Vendmiser and Coolermiser a unique technology that essentially reduces the amount of energy consumed by beverage coolers.” - Ken Fey, Owner, Blue Star Refreshments

Pastries arranged on platters.
Blue Star Refreshments
40800 Encyclopedia Circle
Fremont, CA 94538
Industry/Sector: 

Supply offices with refreshments, offer coffee service, healthy snacks and vending services, fresh fruit, dairy product, baked goods, and catering services.

Climate Friendly Actions

  • Service vehicles run on B99 biodiesel
  • Pallet and packaging recycling program
  • Retrofitted old equipment with energy saving technologies free of charge to customers
  • Promote Vendmiser and Coolermiser cooling Technologies in all implementations
  • Retrofitted LED lights in vending machines to reduce energy consumption and increase life span
  • Implemented route scheduling system which reduced time and transport expenses by 20%
  • Conserves water by use of low flow toilets and washing delivery trucks 50% less
  • Provides biodegradable utensils, cups, bowls and plates, napkins and paper towels for catering
  • Promotes bulk snack program to reduce individual packaged snacks