We supply vending machines to factories and fill them with food.

Tell me your top 5.

Sweets.

Crisps.

Sandwich.

Is there anything you'd like to see in your food vending machine.

Sandwich

Tuna Mayo
Cheese n Onion
Ham n Mustard



Crisps
Walkers S & V
Walkers C & O
Cheesy Wotsits


Sweets/Choccie
Maltesers
Whole nut bar
Topic

There was one where I used to work that had Pies in it, could you do that? Sausage Rolls, Scotch Eggs maybe? If you forget to take your 'bait' to work, then your going to want something decent, not Chocolate or Crisps which is all our vending machine here stocks...it's shite.

Sandwich wise; Ham Salad, Beef and Onion, Tuna and Mayo, Savoury Cheese etc....safe options really. Prawn would be wasted, and theres the popular opinion that anything with Chicken in is going to taste shit because it's out of a vending machine. (Then again, that might just be up here).

Crisps, anything Walkers is usually okay. Avoid Marmite and CHeddar Cheese...why the fuck they get put in our vending machine I'll never know. Ready Salted, Cheese and Onion, Salt and Vinegar...can't go wrong with them three.

I think Cuppy's choice of chocolate may be slightly biased.

Stick with Choc Bars...Mars, Lion Bar, Snickers etc. Polo mints are popular here, I don't think I'll figure out why if I work at the same place for the rest of my life. Fruit Pastilles maybe, Wine Gums...don't see them often, but it somehow feels like your getting way better value for money for them than you are for a choc bar lol! Kit Kats I rank alongside Marmite crisps...just why?

Please put at least one sandwich in that doesn't contain mayonnaise for people like me who can't stand it, unlike most places that put it in EVERY SINGLE SANDWICH.

Cheese and pickle gotta be a favourite (except at Tescos where they even put mayo in that - I swear if they sold jam sandwiches they'd put mayo in them too).

Rant over.

or at least one that doesn't have CHEESE in it...i hate the stuff. Was in Greece one time and looking for a sandwich to take with us for the day, and they all had cheese in..thought i'd finally cracked it when i found a tuna one then she said "you know that's got cheese in don't you?" grrrr

Anyway
Top 5 sweets

Twirl
Twix
Kit Kat
Mars
CDM plain
Oh and those rice krispie Squares go down well too...

(because i know from experience with our machine at work they are all popular and do more than fill a corner if there are no decent butties left!)

Top 5 crisps (don't really bother much with them meself, but again from watching at work)

Walkers Cheese and Onion
Walkers baked crisps
Quavers
Monster munch, especially pickled onion

Sandwiches

Tuna mayo
Ham Salad
Chicken Salad
and guess you have to feed the cheese addicts!!

Choice of white or brown would be good if you can manage that as well

I suppose Col should have been a bit clearer with his request, as we already do most of what's been suggested. What we're conerned about is our customers becoming bored with the same old stuff all the time. We try to vary it as much as we can but we wondered if any of you had any fillings that you like to have that aren't the normal run of the mill ham salad, cheese and pickle type things.
Currently we do baguettes (crispy and now brioche style too), sandwiches (white and brown), large salad baps, hot breakfast baps, plus pies,yoghurts, crisps and snacks.
Anything suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks.

chicken fajita for me please, but don't go mad with the red pepper, Boots wind me up with the amount of red pepper they put in!!

Cool.

next time your doing your big shop, have a look at what the supermarkets are selling that are a bit different. They spend £££ on trend analysis and you could pinch the ideas.

Mix things up with the crisp selection. There are a lot of premium crisps available nowadays, eg, a particular favourite of mine is the walkers sentation range (sweet thai chilli)

A sandwich favourite of mine is bacon and brie...but only on special occasions, dont think I would have it every day...but very nice none the less

Sand

Breakfast
Egg Mayo
Chicken & Bacon Mayo

Sweets

Snickers
Lion
Fruit and Nut

Crisps

Tomato Snaps
Chilli Doritos
Space Raiders - Spicy

One over the road does a very nice chicken and bacon - the bacon is very crispy and is nice cold.

Do you do salad boxes?

Give them a chance, they've only moved in. The garden will take a while.

Well Dandylion & Nettle soup then!

Yes we do.

We're also thinking of doing microwave meals (home made) like chilli and rice, stew and mash, jacket spuds. Would you eat this if it was in your work place vending machine?

As far as the Sandwiches go, try putting some in that DONT come with compulsary pickle, mayo, garnish etc etc. Maybe these things could be put in a sachet. It pisses me off big time that the only place (ASDA) near where i work supply a good selection of sandwiches BUT every one of them comes with some form of pickle, mayo, garnish os some other shite.

MESSAGE TO THE ASDA KNOBHEAD MANAGEMENT: NOT EVERYONE LIKES THAT SHIT. ALL I WANT IS ONE FUCKING CHEESE SALAD SANDWICH WITHOUT THE SHITE IN IT. :angry:

Sorry.... Rant over

I try to do a mixture of stuff with and without condiments but your sachet idea has been taken on board. Thanks Quej.

If the office had a microwave, I wouldn't take one home with me.

don't know if it's come up very often but it's becoming more and more common, but dairy free stuff is unbeleivably difficult to find. just a couple of alternatives might open up a couple of avenues for you, the majority of major sandwich selling places in town have cheese as it's spread rather than anything else.

Might not affect everyone but for those it does affect you would become market leaders in an instant.

Duck in a wrap with hoisin sauce and cucumber/spring onion is a good choice for sandwiches.

Sweets: snickers, mars, kit-kat, fruit bar thingies, dark choc

Crisps: sweet chilli chick, Walkers S & V, Monster munch pickely one, worcherster sauce

Sandwhiches: (Good brown bread) Ham & mustard, Chicken tikka or similar, Ham & Cheese, Chicken and bacon, sundried toms and salad

Not sure about the spelling but have you seen the FeBo snack places in Amsterdam? I rekon they'd go great in towns/cities near the night life and city centre offices. They have hot snacks in behind little windows a bit bigger than a letter box, you put 1 or 2 euros in and take you snack. Usually spring rolls or similar. Some have curries in or similar to pies...

Do these have hash in them? :unsure: If so and Wickly and Lee go down this road i'll take 2 :lol:

If not Hash, I am sure it comes with some Coke :lolanimate:

I don't dabble with hash any more.

Just read Garlics reply

Bacon and Brie is a fav of mine too
They do a nice brie and salad jobbie at work too I'll pay more attention tomorrow and let you know
Sun dried tom bread is nice with some sandwhiches too

We do wraps now and then. The duck one sounds nice.

Anyone got any good veggie suggestions? So sick of doing egg mayo, cheese salad etc.

Vegetable suprise

Roasted vegetables seems to go down well with veggies i know, but how you'd do that wihout making a grease ball i don't know. unless it could be done warm?

can't beat a good corned beef hash!!! :rolleyes:

the salad and pasta boxes are good too, boots do a nice one with tomato, basil and rocket..just wish they'd stick a crusty roll with it too!

microwave ones sound good...can you come and do a machine at our place? we have a microwave but everyone moans at how long it takes to queue at tesco to get your ready meal!!

Like the sound of the duck wrap but that's been done...Malcolm Mclaren I think

Update: Fav crisps are the Sweet thai Chilli

FeBo snack places are great...no hash though ;)

Microwave meals will certanly be popular when the weather gets colder - everyone just seems to supply soup in winter

who are your customers for the food?
You could test with different sarnies to see if they sell compared to your best selling range?
Where are the vending machines placed? Are they in a good positio. Do you need to think about promoting the vending machines and is everyone aware of them?
What are your costs like compared to the competition

Are the machines like these ones? I had one in the drugs factory I worked in once, it was brilliant:

http://www.idealcoffee.com/images/vending_...otating_big.jpg

The thing that bugs me most is I get sick of same old floppy manky bread - much prefer a variety everyday, like wraps, buns, baguettes, crusty rolls etc. I would definately eat jacket potatoes - theres so few places that do them in town and sometimes you have to walk for ages just to find what you want, so to have it in the office would be awesome.

sandwiches - i quite like advocado and bacon, chicken fajita like dee, and definately the duck one that matt suggested. Also agree with the dairy comments, as I've just discovered i'm lactose intolerent so clear labels would also be good for that as I had trawling through ingredients lists!! Again agree with the mayo comments. Hate the stuff.

Crisps - nice to have variety in those definately, hate seeing the same old stuff. We've got some really nice local ones in my vending machine at work- perhaps thats an option to look into? I also liked at the factory they had little tubs of fresh fruit salad, or apples... and yay for salad boxes!!

I know what you mean mate. I threw a hissy fit in Sainsurys the other day because not one sandwich or wrap came without either mayo or some type of creamy sauce. I can stand any of them so rules me out of them.

I know there are plenty of people out there who don't like mayo as well so it always seems strange to me that the shops put it on so many of them. Tesco's used to do a chicken salsa wrap (the only wrap they did at the time without a white sauce) and it would sell out faster than any of the mayo drenched ones.

Dee is nothing like a Chicken Fajita. Fajitas are nice.

Then again Chicken Fajitas go moldy and do start to smell unpleasant if left out to long, so you could argue both ways really

Really really sorry bestest matess, Fitz made me do it! :sorry:

You can't have a Fajita out of a vending machine.. thats just wrong.

Put some Sushi in there.

(2) i fuppin love sushi but you couldnt have proper sushi...just the smoked salmon cooked prawn stuff like out of markies

fuck off and go back to drinking aussie piss......(no lol for clarity!!)

Drinking American piss at the moment, but there is Aussie piss in the fridge

i look forward to your orlando report WPF. I am off out there in mid sept.

Where did you go, recommendations etc etc...

Ta muchy

:lolanimate: We'd never sell sushi in most of our vending machines- they just wouldn't buy it!