Vending Products: From Snacks To Meal Replacement

Customer demands and preferences are changing frequently and any vending operator who wants to maintain his market share will have to adapt accordingly. Snacks are a favorite vending product among people of all types, cultures and age groups. With better lifestyles and diverse likings, evolving consumer tastes allow vending operators to provide a wide variety of snacks than ever before.

Many of these snacks have become a vital part of people’s daily routine. Most employees are short of time and hardly manage to go for proper meals. A bag of chips or a snack mix from an Antares vending machine is the perfect replacement in such cases.

Recognizing this need for quick-fix hunger solutions, snack manufacturers are trying to create and introduce new flavors and ingredients every month to increase customer satisfaction and business profitability. There is intense competition among vending industry players to get the maximum number of customers to use their vending equipment. If you want to maintain a reasonable level of sales, it’s best to keep up with the changing market environment, especially customer demands.

Another trend that is fast emerging is the demand for healthier snacks that have lesser calories, more nutritious elements but still have full flavor and affordable price. This is a great opportunity for snack vending machine operators to meet customer demands by an appropriate product mix while increasing sales. The best idea will be to offer a combination of conventional bestsellers and the healthy snacks in demand at the moment.

Antares vending machines have witnessed a growth in the demand for bold flavors as the traditional snacks are serving as meal replacement for many people. They want “grab and go” food products that will as filling and healthy as a proper meal. Employees who can’t leave their work desk for long periods of time and travelers are the main clients of such snacks. In most cases, the emphasis is still on convenience rather than fitness or healthy diet.

Future trends

While bold flavors are popular since a long time, spicy and tangy flavors are also gaining popularity in the snack mix. Snack manufacturers are trying to make chips and other items self-sufficient i.e. without any need for sauce or dip to improve the taste.

Planet Antares vending products have taken this trend into consideration and offered hot and spicy snacks in various flavors to the operators for filling their vending machines. Not just the ethnic community but also the general public has shown a liking for these new snack flavors.

In the time to come, there will only be lesser time to sit down and have a meal. That means higher demand for “on the move” food which can be met by vending machines. There will be new product innovations, better and faster vending equipment as well as greater range of price points for a variety of items.