Leading UK communications company, O2 has entered into a five-year agreement with Mars Drinks, according to which the latter will provide its drinks vending machines to the regional and local offices of O2 all over the UK. In order to deliver over three million drinks to the O2 employees every year, Mars Drinks will have to install at least 100 vending machines at different O2 sites.

During the tenure of the agreement, Mars Drinks will provide 59 KLIX machines and 50 FLAVIA drink stations to O2.  

O2 officials say that the vending machines contribute to staff happiness. Meanwhile, the vending machine supplier considers it a a good experience to be working with an innovative and people-focused company like O2 as it cares so much for its employees, providing them with on-site services. 

 

In a bid to promote healthy food and eating habits, The British Dental Health Foundation (BDHF) has asked the National Health Service (NHS) to dispense water, fruit juices  and healthy snacks through its vending machines instead of sugared soft drinks, reports the BBC.  

The BDHF wants the NHS to follow the example of many schools across the country have already banned junk food and drinks from their vending machines.

The growing voice against the sale of unhealthy drinks and snacks through vending machines, owing to their known contribution to heart diseases and diabetes, has implications for vending machine operators. The latter will now not only have to balance popular tastes but also consider compliance issues when deciding what to dispense from their vending machines as the prospect of bans on certain types of drinks and foods is indeed real.

UK retailer Tesco is planning to roll out reverse vending machines at 9 stores in Scotland in January, reports Packaging News. Reverse vending machines will help with recycling as customers can put used bottles and cans into these vending machines.  According to the report, customers will be rewarded points for depositing these used materials and using these machines; spectrometry and photography will be used for the purpose of proper identification of these objects. If the initial trial of these vending machines is successful, the retailer may be introducing it in various other stores. Source: Packaging News 

The growing awareness of environment issues is posing a new challenge for vending machine manufacturers and sellers. Are their products environment-friendly? Will users reduce the usage of these machines because of a perception that these machines are contributing to further damage to our environment?

To address the first question, vending machine manufacturers and suppliers are doing everything they can to ensure fears are allayed. Things like total power consumption and in fact, power savings are now very much among their top selling propositions. They are trying to incorporate "environment-friendliness" is incorporated into the all the steps of the vending process- the materials used for the machine, the power consumed and the materials in which drinks are dispensed.

One of the key arguments from the anit-vending machine front is the amount of power wasted by vending machines, that are used for only limited times during the day. In this regard, vending machine operators have a bigger role to play than suppliers and manufacturers of these machines. If vending machine operators were to become more discreet and optimize their use, the overall benefits would undoubtedly tilt the balance in favour of these machines.

A new market research report titled the World Vending Machines Market is now available on Reportlinker.com.

This market research report presents an analysis of the worldwide market for vending machines and analyzes various types of vending machines including beverage vending machines. Geographically, the report presents analysis of Europe, US, Canada, Japan and rest of the world, with annual forecasts up to 2015.

Profiles of about 170 vending machine companies are provided in the report.