Where I live (suburban NY) the vending machines seem to be filled with unhealthy crap. Soda machines sometimes offer bottled water, but as you may know, bottled water is overpriced and has other issues (there have been threads on this before I believe). Most of the snacks in vending machines are pretty bad for you also. I'm not going to argue that people should never have an unhealthy snack, but I always feel like vending machines only allow you to choose to eat unhealthy things. A typical vending machine will have about a dozen different varieties of chips (most of which are pretty bad for you), about a dozen different varieties of candy bars (bad, duh), and half a dozen varieties of cookies (bad). Sometimes they also have a bit of gum or something like that but I'm just talking about food with significant caloric content.
Nobody forces you to use vending machines. I get it. But I often find myself in a position where I'm stuck and I need to use one. I'm always wishing there were machines with healthy options, even if the cost was a bit higher. I've heard it said in a couple of places that healthy vending is becoming more available, and unhealthy vending sales are decreasing. Is this true in your experience?
I am not really in a position to go into the vending industry but I've been looking around a bit online to see if healthy vending is available in the USA. Apparently it is, as this company advertises:
So why haven't I seen healthy food choices start to appear at places near me where there are vending machines? Are customers resisting the change? Has it just not happened yet where I live? This is what I'm wondering.
Is this an emerging market, with lots of money to be made? Should I scrape together all the money I can find and start buying and placing healthy vending machines in these locations I know which only have junk food???
Most of all, where do you live and what is your experience with the products served in vending machines?
So why haven't I seen healthy food choices start to appear at places near me where there are vending machines? Are customers resisting the change? Has it just not happened yet where I live? This is what I'm wondering.
What the above said: it's more expensive.
Cheap snack sell: they taste good, they're quick and they're cheap as hell.
Put some healthy stuff in the vending machine or add more variety of flavors of cheap snacks that already sells?
I went to college in a city that is obsessed with healthy/organic food and I've also never seen one of these. I don't think there are a ton of markets this would succeed in, but there probably are places it would work.
Judging from what you guys have said so far, it seems like these machines are starting to show up, but only in the places that are particularly health conscious. I guess I have to accept the fact that not everybody who goes to the same places as I do is like me when it comes to what products I want in a vending machine :p
edit: btw I looked into it a bit more
Apparently, if you actually wanted to take on these healthy vending machines as a business opportunity, it would cost you ~50,000 dollars to get <10 machines up and running. I don't think it's worth spending that type of money just to get healthy snack machines into the places I want them for my own personal reason though XD
On October 30 2011 06:54 heyoka wrote: I went to college in a city that is obsessed with healthy/organic food and I've also never seen one of these. I don't think there are a ton of markets this would succeed in, but there probably are places it would work.
i'd think the best place would be where a lot of insanely rich people are clustered very densely.. perhaps commercial centers in very big cities.
99% of the time when I want a snack I want something tasty, not filling. Healthy food generally tastes like shit.
EDIT: On the startup price tag... why not buy a used vending machine on ebay for like $1-2k and simply rebrand it? There's no such thing as a "healthy vending machine". It's a vending machine with healthy food in it, which means you can take any food dispensing machine and make your own without the insane startup cost.
On October 30 2011 07:06 Sotamursu wrote: The vending machines in Finland tend to have a few "healthy" options, but those tend to be quite shitty and not even actually healthy food. Stuff like muesli bars, vitamin water (lol), some berry stuff etc. If you really want a healthy snack just go to a nearby market and grab some fruit, usually vending products that are marketed as healthy are things that say 0% fat when they're full of sugar or vice versa.
A good question is what healthy food products are currently available for being put into vending machines...
On October 30 2011 07:11 n.DieJokes wrote: If health food didn't cost me twice as much I'd go for it, until then not a chance
I think this is a false dichotomy
On October 30 2011 07:14 Serejai wrote: 99% of the time when I want a snack I want something tasty, not filling. Healthy food generally tastes like shit.
I do not agree that healthy food usually tastes like shit, although some does.
EDIT: On the startup price tag... why not buy a used vending machine on ebay for like $1-2k and simply rebrand it? There's no such thing as a "healthy vending machine". It's a vending machine with healthy food in it, which means you can take any food dispensing machine and make your own without the insane startup cost.
I think the "bigger" problem with really healthy vending machines is that a lot of these products expire much quicker as the junk food. Where you can leave the junk food in the machine for a long time without any worry and only have to check once in a while if you need to restock the machine you have to: 1) check the machine more often for articles gone bad 2) check every article making it a lot more time consuming as a junk food machine
So not only are your products more expensive but also your margin is probably very small due to the fact you have to throw away products on a regular basis and your employee cost are (a lot) higher because of the extra time spend on checking each machine.
On October 30 2011 08:27 Golden Ghost wrote: I think the "bigger" problem with really healthy vending machines is that a lot of these products expire much quicker as the junk food. Where you can leave the junk food in the machine for a long time without any worry and only have to check once in a while if you need to restock the machine you have to: 1) check the machine more often for articles gone bad 2) check every article making it a lot more time consuming as a junk food machine
So not only are your products more expensive but also your margin is probably very small due to the fact you have to throw away products on a regular basis and your employee cost are (a lot) higher because of the extra time spend on checking each machine.
Very interesting point. I'd be interested in getting numbers for this like how much quicker this stuff actually needs to be sold/discarded.
Healthy food is so subjective these days. Companies will market anything as healthy if it makes a quick buck. Unless the vending machines start selling carrot sticks and spinach salad I don't think there's any point to "healthy" vending machines.
On October 30 2011 09:28 Newbistic wrote: Healthy food is so subjective these days. Companies will market anything as healthy if it makes a quick buck. Unless the vending machines start selling carrot sticks and spinach salad I don't think there's any point to "healthy" vending machines.
Oh I agree 100% about the subjectivity surrounding labeling food as healthy. Still, a move in the direction of healthier is worth pursuing.
On October 30 2011 07:11 n.DieJokes wrote: If health food didn't cost me twice as much I'd go for it, until then not a chance
I think this is a false dichotomy
What, that healthy food costs twice as much? Obviously not, I mean the packaged health food bars and drinks you'd find in a vending machine. They're usually in the 2-3+ dollar range and thats not a worthwhile expenditure for a snack
On October 30 2011 07:11 n.DieJokes wrote: If health food didn't cost me twice as much I'd go for it, until then not a chance
I think this is a false dichotomy
What, that healthy food costs twice as much? Obviously not, I mean the packaged health food bars and drinks you'd find in a vending machine. They're usually in the 2-3+ dollar range and thats not a worthwhile expenditure for a snack
Yeah that's true but I think you can load a vending machine with significantly more healthy stuff than what they normally have without everything having to be in that high price range... but you'd have to leave certain signature items out for sure.
Wouldn't people who cared enough to eat healthy also be conscious enough about their diet to plan their meals in such a way that they wouldn't need to pay for an overpriced snack?
It would seem to me that most people who use vending machines use them because they want something cheap that tastes good to satisfy a hunger/craving/oral fixation when they don't have time to sit down and eat lunch.
Living in the south, I doubt anyone would use one of these machines. Those that did would likely be made fun of.
On October 30 2011 11:32 Gheed wrote: Wouldn't people who cared enough to eat healthy also be conscious enough about their diet to plan their meals in such a way that they wouldn't need to pay for an overpriced snack?
You don't always have control over this...
For example my visits to the driving range aren't always planned well in advance, and even if they are, I don't always go directly from home to the range, so it wouldn't really make sense to pack a cold bottle of water.
When I get there, I think to myself "oh I could use something to drink while I hit golf balls in the sun" and end up hitting the drink machine (there is no water fountain anyway). This leaves me with the option to get soda or iced tea.
Just because you don't plan every calorie you intake ahead of time doesn't mean you don't want to or shouldn't be able to be healthy, in my opinion.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://elitesystemsservices.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/vending-machines.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.healthyvending.com/img/machines/apprentice-large.jpg)
