Trends beyond snacks and drinks

To achieve growth, vending companies must broaden their reach from their traditional core audience of blue-collar workers to professionals and other consumers who have more choices for purchasing food and drink, and thus need to be inspired to choose vending over those alternatives. Making vending into a fun and enjoyable purchase channel and differentiating its products will be key to driving purchases, and also allowing vending companies to avoid having to compete with c-stores and other retailers based solely on price.

Some new vending machines are using fresh and customizable offerings to provide a new “wow factor” to this highly established channel. For example, MooBella recently relaunched vending machines that can make ice cream to order in the flavor of the customer’s choice in a mere 40 seconds. The company is currently testing machines in the field.