Vending has been hitting the headlines recently with the Government expressing concern over obesity in children and head teachers reacting by banning machines from school premises.
But maybe this is something of a knee-jerk reaction. After all, the days when all you could get from a vending machine was fizzy pop and chocolate are long gone. In reality, vending has made huge leaps forward both in technology and in the variety and quality of the food and drink being delivered in this way.
As the great nutrition debate rumbles on, Tracey Gough steps forward to offer a vigorous defence of machine retailing. "Vending is taking the brunt of the blame and doesn't deserve it," says Gough, sales director at Mannvend, which operates some 2,000 machines on the Isle of Man. "Being sold through a vending machine doesn't render a product unhealthy. Water, fruit juice, nuts, fruit, yogurts and low-fat snacks are all ideal for dispensing through vending."
For Gough, removing machines is not the answer. On the contrary, she believes that vending can play a vital role in educating children in the subject of healthy eating. She has proposed the introduction of a traffic-light system using red, amber and green dots to indicate the nutritional value of the food and drink on offer. "It would be a good way to inform children that, while one red choice is fine as a treat, it isn't a good idea to have a lunch made up of all red items, and to persuade them to supplement their choice with green items."
Categorising the products
The only problem she anticipates with the scheme is in getting someone to take on the responsibility of categorising the products, for instance, giving chocolate bars a red dot and deciding what merits a green dot. Whether that would be a task for the education authorities or a decision left up to individual schools is still under discussion, but Gough hopes that the system will one day be implemented across the island.
One fan of the idea is Jan Podsiadly of the Automatic Vending Association (AVA). "Labelling products with nutritional information provides choices," he says. "And vending machines can deliver whatever is decided is appropriate to put before children."
Gough is also calling for food and drink manufacturers to produce healthier products and brand them in a way that is attractive to children. "Children are very brand-conscious," she says. Water illustrates her point. "Placement of Evian branded water has dramatically increased the consumption of water within schools here, and it now outsells brands of carbonated drinks. It's a sexy brand, because children see figures like David Beckham holding a bottle."
Another advocate of providing choice though vending is Pat Gibney, national sales and marketing manager for GVS, supplier of vending services to schools, prisons and offices nationwide. "The problem is not vending itself, but what you put in the machines," he says. "Quite a number of local authorities want to empty the machines of cans and fill them with nutri-bars, but the dilemma here is that if you stop putting those things in, the children will go down the road to the shop and buy them there, so all the school does is lose the sale. The answer is to offer a choice such as bottles of water and diet drinks."
And choice isn't appropriate just for children. More and more companies are using vending machines as a way of providing options in the workplace. "Contract caterers see them as a huge asset to the catering function on site, and they are often the most profitable part," says Gibney.
Of course, having plenty of options on site also means the workforce is less likely to wander off down the high street in search of refreshment. And nothing illustrates that point better than coffee. "Vending has had to catch up with the high-street explosion of coffee bars," says Gibney. "Years ago the image of a vending machine was a box in the corner producing something hot of questionable quality. But technology has come on in leaps and bounds, and some machines now produce coffee drinks from beans and serve them in paper cups."
Charles Trace, group commercial director of Coffee Point, whose main business is in beverage machines, agrees the industry was hit by the advent of coffee shops. "The vending industry has come to terms with the fact that people want quality drinks and choice," he says. "Consequently, vending machines today can give virtually any combination of drinks - mocha, cappuccino, 'creamichoc' - made in a similar way to those available on the high street, with a paper cup, frothing, and chocolate sprinkled on top."
The cups are an important part of the offering for Trace. "We're using more and more paper cups in vending, and this allows better branding than with plastic cups. For instance, Fairtrade tea, coffee and chocolate can be promoted on the cup as well as on the machine, telling the customer where the beans came from," he says. "There is a drawback in that the wax content means the cups can't be recycled, but the AVA is working on that."
Use of fresh milk
Something else he'd like to see more of in vending is the use of fresh milk, but he acknowledges that there is a health and safety issue concerning the cleaning of the machines. "There are around 5-10% of machines out there using fresh milk, but these are usually table-top models," he says. "It's something that will grow, provided machines can be flushed and cleaned automatically."
Such table-top models and the all-important paper cups are features of the 89 food and beverage machines that were supplied by Coffee Point to London law firm Clifford Chance when it relocated to new Canary Wharf premises last year. The firm's aim was to provide its 3,000 workers with the best possible working environment and a range of high-quality beverages, food, snack and confectionery from the latest cashless vending systems.
Technology has also played a part in improving the quality of vended tea, which has traditionally been of the instant variety, although leaf tea is now more commonplace. Claiming to have revolutionised tea vending by introducing a new brewing method is N&W Global Vending, with a system that uses an espresso-style brewing technique in which the leaves are brewed under pressure using water at a higher temperature.
"It makes a good cup of tea and also allows the use of long-leaf teas not traditionally used in vending as they require a longer brewing cycle," says sales and marketing director Mike Kane. "Because of the pressure you get full extraction, so just as coffee shops started serving a range of speciality teas in addition to their coffees, so too can vending machines include a Darjeeling or Assam in addition to the standard breakfast tea."
CONTACTS
- Automatic Vending Association 020 8661 1112
- Coffee Point 020 7519 2600
- Food Now 01483 238808
- GVS 01342 843939
- Huhtamaki 023 9251 2200
- Mannvend 01624 613131
- N&W Global Vending 01902 355000
- Quintus Systems 01494 881422
- Spice Box 07968 197549
Vending Viewpoint
"Cashless payment systems have come a long way since the first cash-on-card systems appeared almost two decades ago. There are clear signs that the hitherto reluctant acceptance of cashless payment is changing as far-sighted operators and caterers alike realise its potential to speed up service and reduce cash handling."
Peter Quinney, managing director, Quintus Systems (manufacturer and distributor of online cashless payment systems)
"The popularity of paper vending cups replicates the trend on the high street whereby more and more coffee bars are using paper cups for hot beverages, as they are believed to enhance customers' perceptions and taste of the beverage on offer. With more sophisticated vending machines offering bean-to-cup coffee and leaf tea, paper cups are the perfect complement to the high-quality beverages being vended, enabling vending operators to charge a price premium for hot beverages."
Neil Whittall, commercial director, Huhtamaki (UK)
Hot vending products
International cuisine meets vending in the form of Spice Box, which provides frozen dishes such as pomodoro al funghi and tagine au poulet ready for reheating in a microwave. Accompaniments such as couscous are also available, as are desserts.
New company Food Now has gone one step further than dispensing chilled food to be reheated in a neighbouring microwave with its Pizza Now machine, which delivers a hot pizza in a box in four minutes. Manufactured in France, the machine is now available in the UK through Container Kitchen Systems. It stores up to 40 12in pizzas - with a shelf life of five days - in foil-lined boxes in a refrigerated compartment, and then heats them between induction plates. Marguerita and Pepperoni are the varieties available at present, with more planned for the future. A machine vending pasta dishes is also in the pipeline.