In the second of his exclusive columns for Planet Vending, N&W MD Dave Ward (pictured), hits back on behalf of the vending industry…
It’s the type of story you’d expect to find in the ‘quality’ tabloids: tub-thumping, rhetorical and tailor-made to provoke indignation amongst their largely middle-class readership.
Having stated that ‘one in seven 15-year-olds and one in 12 six-year-olds is now so overweight their health is under threat’, the article goes on to claim that ‘Eighty percent of parents want a ban on vending machines, which are in an estimated 95 per cent of schools and earn some as much as £15,000 a year.’
Eighty percent of parents want to ban vending machines! Who says so? Who asked the question? Did anybody ever ask you, as a parent, if you wanted to see vending machines banned? Nobody ever asked me, and I’m a parent…
In publicly owned schools, vending, basically, has one arm tied behind its back. Almost all of the UK’s best selling snack and drinks have been banned from school vending machines. In fact, you’ll only find machines in Academies these days and even they are under pressure. The Daily Mail was spot on: many school located machines were making significant amounts of money; but the paper implies that the profits were lining the pockets of vending operators, when in truth, sales from vending machines represented a vital income stream for the schools. And now, that income stream has gone.
Vending is a soft target, but the removal of the machines’ best selling products was a knee-jerk reaction that has achieved absolutely nothing in terms of introducing children to a healthier diet
Take it from me, the administrators in many schools played ‘hard ball’ to keep their vending income. As you may know, Ofsted tends to ‘land’ on schools with the minimum warning, and I’ve heard tales of administrators dashing to school on the eve of an inspection to switch crisps, fizzy drinks and other offending products for ‘healthy’ items, only to replace them as soon as the inspectors had gone.
Vending is a soft target, but the removal of the machines’ best selling products was a knee-jerk reaction that has achieved absolutely nothing in terms of introducing children to a healthier diet. If the vending machine doesn’t stock their desired can of coke, kids won’t shrug and say ‘ok, I’ll have a bottle of water’. Instead, they’ll buy their fizzy drinks a nearby shop. That way, the school loses out on a sale to the local 7-11 and the kids are forced to leave the safety of the school premises to make their purchases.
Even with Big Brother in the school canteen, there is the ‘enemy at the gates’ to deal with. Who can forget the story of ‘Sinner Lady’ Julie Critchlow, who famously enraged Jamie Oliver by selling junk food to children as he battled to improve menus? As pictures showed Mrs Critchlow ‘shovelling pies, burgers, chips and fizzy pop’ through the school railings, in defiance of the chef’s healthy school dinners campaign, she was tagged ‘the worst mum in Britain’.
Even now, she’s not repentant. The Mail quotes her as saying ‘Jamie was wrong. My kids are living proof that a good British diet including chips, mash, sausages and bacon butties helps them turn out just fine.’ The fact that all her kids are, apparently, overweight to the point of obesity, isn’t an issue for her and I suspect that there are many other parents who share her politically incorrect views.
A vending machine is just another shop that offers a range of goods. It doesn’t force anybody to buy anything. So whether children acquire their drinks and snacks from vending machines, the local shop or a maverick parent is immaterial. The fact is, taking away the products that people want and replacing them with products that are deemed to be ‘better for them’, will only work if the offending items are comprehensively banned. This is never going to happen. Do you see the likes of the Big Five retailers removing chocolate, fizzy drinks, crisps and the like from their shelves? Me neither. However, it’s easy to bully the vending industry; we’re seen as being too small to fight back, as an easy target: we’re the whipping boys.
And after all, there’s no such thing as ‘bad food’, just ‘bad diet’.
The AVA, trying to end the ‘easy target’ scenario, has taken up arms against the demonisation of vending machines by ‘calling upon decision makers to recognise that vending can – and should – be part of a healthy balanced lifestyle.’
According to CEO Jonathan Hilder, ‘the AVA has always advocated and supported healthy balanced lifestyles, facilitated through education and choice. The low proportion of calories purchased through vending outlets (estimated to be less than1% of the total average diet), is relevant in the context of discussing obesity. Further, 80% of all purchases made through the vending channel are hot beverages.’
The numbers are eloquent indeed. Just 1% of the nation’s calorific intake is delivered via vending machines, of which just 5% was bought in schools. So, by targeting vending (and ignoring other sources of ‘contraband’ goods, such as the local shop), the Powers That Be have left 99.95% of the problem untouched; whilst vending has been bullied and battered.
Ouch. It’s the sort of injustice that, if it happened on a football field, would have the likes of Rio Ferdinand /John Terry / Kolo Toure clapping sarcastically in the referee’s face.
It’s not as though our industry is doing nothing to promote a healthier lifestyle. Included in AVEX 2013 will be a ‘Healthy Vending’ conference, organised by industry expert Gillian White of 24 Vend, in which speakers will showcase innovative vending solutions that support health and well-being initiatives in a range of settings.
On top of that, the AVA is working with the University of Central Birmingham to create tasty, healthy meals that are ideally suited to vending.
Vending is not responsible for the mores of the British public. To outlaw vending machines from providing the products that people want to buy isn’t going to cure anything.
The prohibition of cigarette vending machines is a case in point. It’s done absolutely nothing to staunch the sale of tobacco. Imagine a smoker discovering that his local pub had removed the ‘cig machine’. Do the authorities really believe that the smoker in question, needing another pack, will shrug his shoulders and say ‘ok, that’s it, I quit?’
I don’t think so. On the contrary, he’ll buy his cigs before he gets to the pub, denying the beleaguered publican another opportunity to make a few bob.
Vending, you see, is the perennial whipping boy. It’s the same old, same old story…
You can read Dave’s first exclusive column here on Planet Vending.
