Come Together - Right Now

I always find it interesting to look back on what has started to trend in our industry, and then to watch those novelties mature and become familiar over time. Vending Times has been reporting on these changes for more than half a century, and the ones that caught on have joined the growing arsenal of tools and techniques that allows us to compete with other convenience and entertainment channels.

Micromarkets and "healthy" vending, now interacting with social media, cashless payment systems, remote monitoring, management software and warehouse automation, are all trending right now (or are still trending; it's been going on awhile). Vending has always been an engineering-dependent enterprise, but (as in other industries) a tool that finds acceptance will be one that benefits customers and operators alike. Engineering made wireless connectivity possible, and then affordable. But every location has different needs, so it's necessary to find systems sufficiently flexible to meet those varied requirements. And of course, offering customers choices and giving them the information they want bolsters the bottom line.

That said, I think it's interesting to take a look at some of the products that have been influencing consumer purchasing decisions in foodservice, since these surely will affect the menus in full-line vending and micromarket operations.

This past year, according Chicago-based to NPD Group (it monitors consumers' grocery and restaurant purchasing behavior), the ability to attract more customers in 2016 will ultimately come down to the food. Also encouraging is that, according to NPD, the foodservice industry regained the visits it had lost during the Great Recession. Apparently, the research organization observes, "it's all about the food" (wasn't it always?!) NPD also cites strong demand for breakfast food items and stronger quick-service restaurant traffic, both catalyzed by menu innovation, as drivers of the recovery.

NPD's study finds that consumers will focus on foods that they consider "real" or "clean": natural, fresh and preservative-free. Perception or reality, the influence of "clean eaters" on the restaurant industry had begun even before the economic downturn, and it will become more pronounced in the New Year. But no matter how you slice it (Certified GMO-free or not), if you've been paying attention none of this should come as a surprise to the vending industry.

Many of today's trends are reminiscent of opportunities perceived by vending industry observers in the past (sometimes the distant past), if only products and processes could be found to offer vending patrons attractive options at the start of the day -- why waste time stopping at a c-store for coffee and a dried-out roller grill selection on the way in to work, or stopping off on the way home to pick up something for dinner, when your workplace has a bank of attractive vending machines?

Those questions now can be answered. We can easily take advantage of today's wide range of convenience breakfast items (egg burrito anyone?) and what's more, we can offer customers the ability to purchase all the components of a meal with a single payment ("bundling" for customer convenience). We certainly have the ability to capitalize on a "take-home" market to boost food sales at the end of the day, and now we can do all these things much better than we could have done them even a decade ago.

I think this is good news for the vending industry -- and for the amusement business too, since an appealing variety of good food is a major attraction of successful family entertainment centers. Today, through the convergence of technologies and exercise of a little ingenuity, we are at last in a position from which to compete effectively in the convenience and quick-service foodservice channels.

Networked machines and touchscreens permit customers to interact with products "virtually" by manipulating 3D images to display ingredient and nutrition labels. Payment systems, including mobile options, let patrons make purchases with whatever is in their pockets, and also allow operators to offer multiple-purchase options at promotional prices. A customer can make a purchase with a credit card or smartphone and then participate in sharing experiences online. We have the ability to change prices remotely; this has not yet appeared in mainstream vending, but it is common with micromarkets. And those micromarkets have much wider tolerance for odd package sizes and shapes.

In short, an on-the-go population increasingly pressed for time has been demanding greater convenience and more variety. This industry always has emphasized those benefits, and we enter 2016 with greater capacity to deliver them than we've ever had before. It's up to us to take advantage of this strong position; it we don't, it will be no one's fault but ours.