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  • Why Traditional Snacks Still Drive Vending Sales
    - Wednesday January 16, 2013
    Operators are constantly getting requests for healthier products from locations. In 2012, VendingMarketWatch reported at least 15 cities that enacted some form of limitation on what snacks could be sold in vending machines, and that doesn't include the public schools restricting vending machine products and operating times, which reach into the hundreds. While I completely agree with those that say vending and micro market operators need to be proactive in addressing the health concerns of consumers, I also hear operators acknowledge that the sales aren't supporting the consumer requests for these items, at least in vending machines. Why aren't consumers buying the healthy items from machines in mass numbers? Well, aside from a...

  • Time to reconsider tea
    By Emily Refermat - Wednesday January 9, 2013
    A recently published state of the U.S. Tea industry from the Tea Association of the U.S.A., Inc. reported not only how tea imports have increased in recent years, but how consumer demand is growing. According to Joseph Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the U.S.A., Inc., tea imports reached a record breaking 281 million pounds in 2011 with a dollar value for wholesale tea up 5 percent to $8.2 billion. The tea trend growing the most is ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages. "Within the tea industry there are segments that are faring better than others with RTD and Specialty Tea on top of the list," said Simrany in a prepared statement.   Ready-to-drink trend continues The RTD segment has been growing in the last few years...

  • Mondelez International Looks Back
    By Emily Refermat - Thursday December 13, 2012
    After making a monumental change, it's natural to look back in order to see how far ones come. Last week I got to do just that, as a guest of Mondelez International in New York City.  Mondelez International, for those that don't know, is the snack food business split from well-known Kraft Foods. Pronounced " mohn-dah-LEEZ," it means delicious world. In fact, coming soon is a new video segment of VendingMarketWatch News with Paul Schindelar who explains not only how the name was derived but what the split means for the vending industry. Watch for a special invitation for the newscast in your mailbox.   New York Mall Displays Nabisco History Back to New York…one of the subsidiaries of Mondelez International is Nabisco...

  • There are apps for everything – why not vending?
    By Emily Refermat - Wednesday November 28, 2012
    As a member of Gen Y, I like apps (otherwise known as digital applications on smartphones and tablets). They are fun to use, and often quite useful. When I read part 3 of Michael Kasavana’s article about V-Engineering, which is about marketing to vending consumers using their mobile devices, I was most interested in how apps will be used by and for vending machines. It’s coming in the December issue of Automatic Merchandiser , so I won’t spoil the read for you, but I will say that Dr. Kasavava mentioned an app customers could use to find vending machines, no matter where they are. Interesting, but that has to be years away…maybe not. As I was scouring news sites, I came across a “similar” app called “Where to Wee.” Cintas...

  • True opportunities for bottled water service
    By Emily Refermat - Wednesday November 21, 2012
    In 2012, the National Automatic Merchandising Association co-located the CoffeeTea&Water event with the International Bottled Water Association show. While it certainly brought more attendees to the CTW event, I found myself wondering what opportunities it really offered to vending operators, specifically those in coffee service. Members of IBWA tend to be water service providers, some of which do offer coffee. At least one operator I met at CTW had crossed over. The owner of PrairieFire Coffee, Wichita, Kan., was actually a water service provider who acquired an OCS operation and rebranded the entire company. He had staff there working both sides of the show.   5-gallon water business still viable While vending and coffee...

  • Capital Gains Tax Increases And Other Spooky Stuff
    By Marc Rosset - Wednesday October 31, 2012
    While reading my favorite investment and financial blogs and web sites, just before Halloween, I felt it my duty as a consultant to the industry, to summarize what I have learned, and pass it on to those of you who have been sitting on the fence concerning selling your business or acquiring a competitor. As of this moment, the capital gains rate for 2013 will be raised to 23.8 percent from the current 15 percent. Here’s how that happens. The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Jobs Creation Act of 2010 extend the Bush-era tax cuts until the end of 2012. Beginning January 1, 2013, the tax rate will revert from the current 15 percent rate back to the former 20 percent capital gain tax rate that was in effect prior...

  • Research Shows Vending Isn't Just Junk Food
    By Emily Refermat - Wednesday October 24, 2012
    Back on Oct. 12, 2012, VendingMarketWatch reported a Forbes article about a study that links chocolate and winning Nobel prize s. It's a great story. The researcher looked at different countries, the number of Nobel prizes won and the chocolate consumed, and he saw a correlation -- the more chocolate, the more Nobel prizes. Specifically he saw a significant linear correlation between chocolate consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureates per 10 million persons in a total of 23 countries. Correlation does not equal causation, but chocolate has been linked to other positive health benefits, especially dark chocolate, so it's not a difficult leap to make. This type of article is a great addition to a newsletter or email...

  • 'Force Vend' Gives Industry Bad Image
    By Tom Britten - Wednesday October 17, 2012
    Force vend is a condition where the vending operator programs the machine not to give a refund after inserting payment, but not making a selection. This practice is considered to be unethical to many within the industry, but, some operators and bottlers still practice it. Proposals promise a flood initiatives designed to sky rocket customer satisfaction, and infrared sensors are used to guarantee product delivery, double your money back refunds are offered if you’re dissatisfied with any product, all to create a positive vending purchasing experience, yet, operators often program their machines in a force vend, anti-customer, mode in direct conflict with their own customer satisfaction policies. The vast majority people in this industry...

  • Will Micro Markets Be The Next ADA Target?
    By Emily Refermat - Wednesday October 10, 2012
    I’ve recently returned from the Atlantic Coast Expo in Myrtle Beach, S.C. where I sat in on a session Heidi Chico, president of the Wittern Group, gave about how vending operators will need to comply with the revised Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a great session, and she fielded many questions attendees had about this wide-spread rule, which took effect in March of this year. But what really caught my attention is when the discussion moved to micro markets. Since micro markets have kiosks, those pieces of equipment are held to the same set of standards as vending machines, with a maximum height for controls of 48 inches and if there’s a delivery area, it can’t be below a height of 15 inches. The equipment...

  • Dunkin Donuts Adding Locations Means Trouble For Vending
    By Paul Schlossberg - Wednesday October 3, 2012
    Dunkin' Donuts recently announced it was opening new restaurants on 10 college campuses. This is part of their plan to double the number of stores in the next 20 years. We do not know what sort of deals DD is offering to these new sites. It might be franchising, but it's more likely to be some sort of licensing deal with the college (if self-op) or the foodservice contractor (at that campus). In one sense it is NOT news. Think back to the surge of "branding" in the 1990s, when so many restaurant brands expanded at colleges, hospitals, B&I's, etc. That evolutionary process continues to this day. What is news now, in my opinion, is that the growth challenge for restaurant chains is much more difficult today than it was 10 to 15 years ago...