nosh nook #118 - wednesday, august 26, 2009

miami's natural choice vending stocks healthy options in snack machines (link)
08.25.09 - miami new times - by jacob katel

i remember the days when vending machines were vending machines. you'd pop a few quarters into the machine, pair up a number & a letter & a bag of entirely unhealthy hohos or a can of tooth-decaying coca cola would drop down, ready to fill you with all the sugars & salts & syrups that your little heart desired. that's a time whose time has surely passed. if you're a high school student, there's a good chance that your school has already banned sweets & sodas from the vending machines. good luck trying to get your lunchtime fix of take 5 candy bars, sally.

now a company out of the miami area, natural choice vending, is taking the "healthy vending machine" concept to the next level. the miami new times, village voice media's south florida arm, gave jennie & rebecca albano, the masterminds behind natural choice vending, a call to get the inside scoop on how they're bringing health to the vending machine. at the moment, they only have three clients--the miami herald, ransom everglades high school (in coconut  grove) & world fuel services (in doral)--but they're just starting out. schools are an obvious outlet for expansion, but as far as expanding into schools goes, they plan on "focusing on private schools because public school is sort of a political bidding process, and (they're) just a small company." it's probably for the best. you have a better chance of getting private school students to eat veggie booty anyhow. public school students just prefer plain ol human booty.

pricewise, almost all the healthy snacks are $1.00, so they're comparable to the prices in most vending machines. jennie & rebecca aren't concerned with making money though. for them "it's not about money making, it's about let's give people an option." ...as long as that option is a healhy option, that is. don't get me wrong. it's not that i don't enjoy healthy snacks. it's just that i'm a cold-hearted snake who likes to make fun of people, especially when it comes to the recent crusade for healthy foods. i know. i'll burn in "hell" for it one day.