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Digital wallets, big touch screens and more fiber: the future of vending machines
Photo by Kelly West, AMERICAN-STATESMAN
I have seen the future of vending machines.
Don’t worry. They still have Famous Amos cookies and Mountain Dew.
On Tuesday, a large contingent from the National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA) set up shop, literally, on 2nd Street and Congress Ave with about a dozen displays of vending machines, automated snack shops and payment centers they say will be deployed in the next few years wherever you go for snacks.
Among the innovations were large, touch-screen Coca-Cola machines that allow you to play games, rotate images of beverages to see the calorie count and other details, automated employee-less snack markets similar to self-checkout stations at grocery store, a cotton candy vending machine that spins for you as you wait and new ways to pay with a digital wallet (namely, your cell phone).
“The Gratitude Tour” gave passersby free drinks, candy bars and other snacks and other goods available in all the machines.
LyNae Schleyer, senior director of education at NAMA, said that federal regulations to go into effect next year and new technology are changing the way vending machines will operate. They’ll offer new ways to advertise to customers while also making more nutrition and calorie information available.
A few of the innovations on display included:
- Unattended kiosks — Two vendors, Avanti Markets and Company Kitchen showed off mini marketplaces that companies could offer a wide variety of fresh fruit, snacks, drinks and meals without a clerk. Each has a kiosk where you’d pay for your items and, since these would typically be placed in workplaces, security would be handled with video cameras or employee IDs. The kiosks look like ATM machines and work like a grocery store self check-out allowing you to scan the UPC codes of the items to make your purchases.
- REALLY fresh coffee — Seattle’s Best showed off a “Hot Drink Center” that contains coffee beans and grinds them in the machine for a variety of coffee drinks.
- Big screen bottles — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft Foods all showed off vending machines with large touch screens. They allow ads to be blasted at customers, unfortunately, but also offer games, product information, rewards, promotions that can be changed throughout a day (like buy-one-get-one-free breakfast item in the morning, for instance). They are also online, allowing inventory, buying trends and other information to go back to the company.
- Cotton candy from a machine — Vend Ever’s Cotton Candy Factory spins fresh cotton candy at $3 a pop. Unfortunately, power generators at the tour were causing the machine to keep rebooting when we tried it.
- More nutritional information and healthy choices — Vending machines aren’t associated with good health, but NAMA members say they’re doing more labeling of “Fit Pick” products. Canteen’s 2bU machine will offer local, organic, vegan, bluten-free and kosher products with information on those items available on an LCD screen.
- Recycling — PepsiCo’s Dream Machine allows for smart recycling by scanning UPC codes and in states where deposits are available can print out a slip for a customer for that or can apply deposit money to a card they can use later to purchase other items.
- More payment options — A large chunk of the future of vending machines is going from coins and crinkly dollars to digital wallets and credit. On display were machines that can allow you to pay with large bills and give you back bills as change (instead of just coins). There were also credit/debit card-capable machines, machines that can accept payment from key fobs, ID cards or other microchip-carrying items and, of course, mobile wallets. Google’s big push into this area is part of a movement to allow customers to pay with their phone. NFC (near-field communication) and radio frequency payments were shown off and are expected to be huge in the vending machine market.
More photos of what to expect:
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