Kkb500 Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I'm interested in the healthy vending market and looking for some feedback on two companies under consideration - Healthier 4 U and Grow Healthy Vending. Any feedback on past experiences would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I'm interested in the healthy vending market and looking for some feedback on two companies under consideration - Healthier 4 U and Grow Healthy Vending. Any feedback on past experiences would be appreciated. Welcome to the forum. You'll find a lot of feedback on Healthy Vending here - nothing you'll want to hear if you've got your heart set on healthy vending/. Just do a site search. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Welcome to the forum. This is the best place to get terrific advice from veterans in the industry. I don't believe you'll find any operators here that are experienced in healthy vending. We all understand it's not a good business plan unless you are the one selling the machines. Just check out the listings on Craigslist of healthy vending machines that come up for sale. You also won't find any good news here about the healthy vending wave in vending. Veteran operators have tried many times in their careers to get healthy selections to work in their machines and the public simply won't buy them if they have other options. As vending operators, they are best served to provide the snacks, candy and drinks that the majority of customers want and are willing to pay for. Proactive operators will provide a few requested items as needed to their accounts but those items, especially when considered healthy, almost never become good sellers - they are included in the product mix as a courtesy to the client. You might look at that last paragraph and think "That's why a dedicated healthy machine will do better than what's been tried in the past." That would be an incorrect statement. Doing "better" is not simply producing more revenue due to overpriced healthy products, but actually producing a better profit at the bottom line, and this is where healthy vending falls short. Certainly a location that has a healthy machine ONLY will do okay because it is the only option and basically the healthy products are being forced down the customer's throats at high prices. But it will be at the expense of better unit volume and higher profit margins that regular vending fare would provide to the operator. In other words, if healthy vending is the only option, you will sell products and the gross sales might be good due to the high prices charged, but you will not have a very robust bottom line due to the inordinately high product costs you incur. This will dramatically extend the time it would take to pay off the investment. About that investment - Dealing with a healthy vending franchisor is very expensive and requires you to purchase overpriced machines from them. They probably even offer the products at their very high product costs. If you were determined to do healthy vending and didn't want to give your life savings to a biz-op outfit, you can buy your own machines and cover them with readily available healthy vending graphics, price labels, product callouts, etc., find your own locations that want healthy vending (they all say they do but the sales don't justify it) and save yourself a boatload of cash. Good luck to you, but please consider the alternative to this and look into getting into regular vending as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 I'm interested in the healthy vending market and looking for some feedback on two companies under consideration - Healthier 4 U and Grow Healthy Vending. Any feedback on past experiences would be appreciated.The opinion of most guys around here on these business opportunities." Biz ops" is not a favorable one. Healthy vending is a niche market, granted a growing one, but if it is as good and profitable as they make it sound don't you think all the major vending companies would be moving into that space as well? They are not.Can you make money with this model, yes, there are success stories out there but,IMO, the hurdles you face are greater. When you are buying a new machine for more than 2X what you could buy it for from a distributor without the vinyl green graphics to sell a product that typically sells at twice what a comparable "nonhealthy" product does, IMO, you are looking at a much longer ROI than our industry norm. If you are really interested I would recommend staying away from the franchise versions of this business model due to the additional cost, control and noncompete restrictions. I would recommend either buying machines youself and putting your own graphics on them (available from Vendors Exchange) and hit the pavement. If you adament about needing to pay to learn then go for one or two machines to learn but does not lock you into a noncompete and then strike out on your own, it'll save you 10's of thousands of dollars in capital costs if you stick with it and build a business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKK Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Healthy sucks. Why dont they sell salads and granola bars at the theatres? The only healthy thing that sells good is water. I got out of a great location because they wanted healthy and I refused. They got a new vendor and they told me ( its been 2 months) that they may b pulling out soon because of their low sales. Their machines look like seagas with a touchscreen. If they rnt doing well there forget it (800 employees call center style). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Top Locator Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Welcome to the forum. Of course you need to follow the heart in this and do your own research. We have found after years of working with hundreds of vendors really that the most successful-most profitable vendors do a combination of products healthy and traditional. Yes healthy is becoming more and more prevalent. The reality is though many people still enjoy their Cola and M+M's. Something to consider. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc vending Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 Healthy is cool but not very profitable. 10 to 20 percent of the products in our machines are healthy and those are the slow coils. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawksfan9325 Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 I look at it like this. There is your standard vending products, and your less junkie products. Healthy Vending is a bit of an oxymoron, as nothing in a bag is truly that healthy. Things that are "healthy" that have sold well for me are nuts, all varieties of baked chips, natures valley bars, trail mix, popcorn, etc. That is where I draw the line. Those tend to sell at about half of what a normal product would. This is at a very diverse location. Upper middle class people, to homeless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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