Snack selling through vending machines is an independent vending trend (snack is a product that can be snatched on a move; food being eaten at intervals between main meals; stuff that is eaten just because it’s tasty).

Quite various products are considered snacks: sandwiches, biscuits, popcorn, cheese balls, flakes, dried fish, chips, nuts, bars of chocolate, doughnuts, croutons, dried fruit, sunflower seeds and many other things - in general, everything the hand reaches out for if this stuff is on the desk.

It is considered that it is easier to find location for a snack machine than, for instance, for a beverage vending machine – the competition is not so intense. At the same time the snack machines are more expensive and are repaid in longer time than, for example, coffee machines. The snack vending machines are normally bigger in size and designed for wide range of goods. Vendors coming off the assembly line of a reliable and serious producer have very long life cycle and can be paid back tenfold. The snack vendors come in a variety of shapes and sizes: small vendors that can be put on a table (table-top vendors) (they dispense up to 10 product units) or huge boxes to their full height with bright front windows.

Who doesn’t like snack machines? Even those keeping to a diet buy through a vendor a dietary sandwich or sugar-free chocolate sometimes. When you are working without a lunch break or sitting in a waiting room of some office a snack vendor will become your best friend. Not to mention the snack vendors at enterprises and educational institutions. A vendor becomes a favorite place of pilgrimage, a place of a meeting and a pleasure resort.

Snack machine is an ideal supplement to a coffee machine if it vends small elegant cakes, chocolate stuff, doughnuts. At the sight of beverage vending machines people used to service look for a snack machine in immediate proximity to it. This couple becomes bit by bit inseparable.

Whether a snack vending will be in great demand in a country or no – depends on national food intake standards (culture). Deep in his/her mind every adult understands that it’s wrong to eat fast, to snatch a meal not looking after digestion and hand cleanness but the inner voice is muffled up by magnificence of the range of goods on the other side of vendor’s glass; and mind gives way to impetuosity. Therefore, in order to secure population against bad habit of snatching a meal the government of many countries insists on offering of more healthy food in vendors that is food with more fiber and less fat. A tendency to healthy food grabbed civilized society. Vending operators take their niche in this rush for health and slenderness, vending healthy foodstuff to people: fruit (fresh, dried, frozen), low-calorie biscuits, rice doughnuts, vegetables, cereal bread, yoghurt, and pretzels.

The snack vending has its own features. It is important:

- to look after the expiration date of goods. Many kinds of food stuff related to snacks or set up for it have limited shelf life (e.g., only 2 weeks) and an operator has to be sure that the stuff will be sold otherwise a negative profit cannot be avoided. In big vendors holding several hundreds of product units it’s quite possible to miss an expiring shelf life – and both the operator and the owner of the vendor will be to blame. That’s why the professional operators accompany the refilling process with a detailed inventory of goods and their expiring dates. The data is entered into a computer and several days before the regular refilling of the vendor a signal notifies of the need to replace or remove certain products. That’s why recently it became popular among operators to have a pocket computer with the special vending software.

- to know exactly what to bring, where and in what amount. Snacks occupy more volume than all other refills, while transportation it is important not to crumb it (chips, crackers), not to crush (chocolate bars), to keep the temperature just right. So in order not to load unnecessarily your car with cumbersome boxes (especially if it is not a truck) – learn to plan.

Each snack vendor location has its own specificity of suggested goods. Everything depends on the consumer. Sex, age, social status, purse size and even skin color can influence at times on the suggested product mix. Sometimes several rows in one vendor may be filled with one and the same product in order to satisfy the public buying up well exactly this stuff. And if next time approaching this vendor you notice that all rows of the mentioned product are empty may be it’s time to think about providing one or two more rows for it but don’t go too far.

An operator having several vending machines should keep records of what and where he/she puts goods. The mistake of many people is as follows: coming to a vending machine and seeing empty (bought up) shelves an operator cannot recall what he was selling on these shelves. So he arranges any product of the same price – that’s all, a buyer «is deluded into false expectations to see the product he/she liked again», so the profit is lost.

Are there any prospects for snack vending? Yes, undoubtedly. The producers establish increase in demand for snack vending machines worldwide; their share grows from 14 to 25%, and somewhere to 40% (as compared to the coffee machines). As public opinion polls show the operators of coffee vending machines choose snack business as an additional direction. Wide market and prospects are in countries where the snack vending is in embryo. The snack vending machines are coming to shopping and leisure centers, vacation houses, office buildings, public institutions and schools.

On the whole the snack vending business can be very profitable if you don’t overpay for a vendor, find good location and follow customers tastes.

Good luck!