Top 5 Office Vending Trends You Need to Know for 2020

There are three primary driving forces behind recent office vending trends:

Healthy vending machines can offer employees, students, patients (or whoever may be using them) a broad variety of snack options. When choosing a healthier snack, it’s important to focus on fiber, protein, and healthy fats. Some healthy swaps include:

• Millennials make up more of the workforce: According to Forbes, 40% of the workforce is now comprised of Millennial workers. This key consumer market demands greater convenience, personalization, and integration with technology, as well as more product variety and higher quality.
• The “war for talent” is intensifying: As a result of a strong labor market, companies are looking for new and creative ways to develop the type of workplace that can retain top talent. Onsite food and beverage options make a meaningful impact.
• Technological innovation in unattended foodservice continues. Developments in the industry continue to drive innovation forward, opening up new opportunities beyond traditional office vending.

A healthy vending program called FitPick can also help your team make healthier snack choices. The program uses dietary guidelines from organizations like the American Heart Association to label food and beverage options with a special sticker indicating it’s a better-for-you choice than traditionally vended products. Learn more about FitPick and how it works.

Health-conscious consumers want more from vending than chips, cookies, and soft drinks. This extends to the workplace, where offering employees healthier swaps like fruit, veggies, nuts, and yogurt can even improve productivity and lower absenteeism. Making employee health and wellness a key priority will pay off for companies, especially as health care costs continue to rise.

Workers aren’t just looking for a broader range of healthy vending selections – they’re looking for more options, period. As an example, in our work with employers across the state, Florida Fresh has recently noticed a rise in the popularity of energy drinks in vending machines.

The increased demand for variety is driven in part by the Millennial generation accounting for a larger portion of the workforce. This generation grew up in an age of variety and convenience, especially when it comes to food and beverages. From customizing your drink order at Starbucks to ordering your favorite dish to be delivered via GrubHub or UberEats, consumers in the younger generations are accustomed to being able to easily find what they want.

In the second half of 2019, Florida Fresh saw a significant uptick in our customers converting traditional office vending machines to micro markets. We expect this trend will persist as employers continue to find new ways to differentiate themselves in a drive to attract and retain talent. A micro market can offer fresher, higher-quality, and more varied options with the convenience of vending, and also provides a more upscale experience.

For the past several years, the vending industry has been strongly focused on enabling cashless payment at vending machines. Not only is this more convenient for many users, it prevents one of the classic pitfalls of a traditional vending machine: “It ate my dollar bill.”

This trend is morphing into a rise in mobile payments. According to FoodBev.com, there are over 252 million Apple Pay users worldwide, and the figure continues to grow. This is indicative of the rise in popularity of a range of mobile payment options. In response, many vending machines can now take mobile payments or can link to users’ online accounts through apps. This offers the additional benefit of tying into services like USConnectMe, which gives your employees points for every purchase that they can later redeem for products.

As more and more people discover allergies and sensitivities to gluten, nuts, dairy, and other foods, there has been a greater demand for products that cater to these needs. Beyond allergy concerns, more consumers now choose to follow self-imposed dietary restrictions like vegan, keto, paleo, sugar-free, and more. Consumer packaged goods companies, grocery retailers, restaurants, and vending services companies are all feeling the effects of these trends.

With these five key trends in mind, it’s more important than ever to work with an office vending service that lets you customize offerings to your workforce. Whether it’s providing greater overall variety, healthier choices, gluten-free products, or a revamped experience in the form of a micro market, Florida Fresh works with employers across the state to tailor vending services to their exact needs. Let us help you stay on top of these vending trends and design the custom solution that works for your team. Get in touch with us today.

Find out more about Florida Fresh, Florida’s top vending and micro market provider serving Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Melbourne and more. We help companies drive employee satisfaction through better meal, snack, and beverage options – see how we’ve helped the team at Maximus Federal in Jacksonville.