Healthy vending Ireland

sky19821127

Hi, everyone. i am looking for feedback on fesibility of a business project in ireland.

Our management team have decided to create a heathy vending business in ireland by join a American franchising Company
H.U.M.A.N www.healthyvending.com .
The basic idea is to import this well designed vending machine with large screen LCD display ; cashless payment system ; small touch screen panel;
and specialise in healthy products only. our major targeted customers include school students , business professionals ,maybe some gym users as well.
Basically, we are to bring H.U.M.A.N's successful experience from U S. to Ireland.

We would love to hear your views and feedback on this!
Thanks so much for your time !!:)

fishy21

cashless??? As in credit card only?

I know that people dont like to use their card for small payments such as this would be.

What kind of food are you thinking about?

You would have a good usp though, so getting your vending machines into premises might be easier than normal.

r3nu4l

I assume this system would take Visa Debit cards but would it also handle Ireland's 'Laser card'?

ronaneire

I can't see it being an easy sell. The market is already flooded with vending machines and what are you classing as healthy foods? No matter how you dress it up it's a vending machine with an LCD screen dispensing fruit juices and 'healthy snack bars'...
How do you intend to service them?

sky19821127

this cashless payment facility is additional feature. customers will also able to pay by coins and notes.
the point is to provide as many as possible options for people to pay.

we are thinking make a seletion of healthy snacks and drinks as subsitution for regular fissy drink and salty and high calorie crisps or bars .
eg, fresh juice . low salt snacks and nutrition bars . and other drinks and snacks provided by healthy food supplier.
we will not sell any unhealthy products in our machine.

sky19821127

i should able to handlel any laser payment card include one in ireland

sky19821127

there would be some unique selling points here compare to a regular vending business.
a attractive vending machine with easy payment system . a LCD Screen to educate our customer with diet and nutrition info and display products nutrition deatails and so on.
we are selling in a good shape by provide heath to our customer.

ronaneire

sky19821127 wrote: »

i should able to handlel any laser payment card include one in ireland

For this you would need some form of internet connection? How feasible to you see this?

Phibsboro7

sky19821127 wrote: »

t
we are thinking make a seletion of healthy snacks and drinks as subsitution for regular fissy drink and salty and high calorie crisps or bars .
eg, fresh juice . low salt snacks and nutrition bars . and other drinks and snacks provided by healthy food supplier.
we will not sell any unhealthy products in our machine.

As someone with a PhD in Biochemistry - its impossible to define what exactly is unhealthy food. However I get your drift.

If you are talking about fresh foods you are going to have to service/restock these machines on a regular basis. Watch the geography of Ireland and choose defined locations carefully- I was in discussion with someone this morning that finds it impossible to service customers who live in areas on the west coast of Ireland in a timely manner - due to difficultly and expense in reaching them.

Also watch your product descriptions especially in advertisements and desciptions. Innocent Smoothies had a bit of difficulty a couple of years ago as to what the meaning of "Detox" was.

bigneacy

Seems to me like a good idea. The only thing is though, people are no longer as prepared to pay a premium for healthy food as they used to be. If you can have your products alongside the other unhealthy options for the same/similar price then you'll do well.

The colleges, schools and universities should be a receptive audience. I can't see any gyms and forward looking companies not taking your calls either. Good idea!

The two points above about the internet connection and the more regular than usual re-stock would have been my only points for you to consider. In most colleges and universities the machines get stocked once or twice a day anyway.

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

For this you would need some form of internet connection? How feasible to you see this?

i thinks so , i manchine with wi-fi would do .

ronaneire

sky19821127 wrote: »

i thinks so , i manchine with wi-fi would do .

You would still need an internet connection for Wifi and im not sure if cashless systems can be used over it either?
You're going to have to invest quite a lot of money in this venture and will not see a return for a long time due the small amount of revenue that the machines can make, as pointed out by a previous poster restocking could be your issue.

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

You would still need an internet connection for Wifi and im not sure if cashless systems can be used over it either?
You're going to have to invest quite a lot of money in this venture and will not see a return for a long time due the small amount of revenue that the machines can make, as pointed out by a previous poster restocking could be your issue.

It is not really a problem now,as this system is already built in to the vending machine offerred from our franchisor HUMAN. and purchase proce for this machine is quite affordable
say 8999 dollars for wholesale price!

sky19821127

the wifi is mainly for stock issues, to enable us to use JIT technique

glanman

I would echo the call to go to schools, universitys, gyms, progressive companies... Go with the concept of making the school healthy and them removing the unhealthy machines. As far as I know the vending machines are a nice bit of cash for the school, uni etc who have one so have your business case sorted out too when talking to them

fishy21

asaik you wouldnt need an internet connection. Would you not just use a card processing system that uses a sim card??

sky19821127

glanman wrote: »

I would echo the call to go to schools, universitys, gyms, progressive companies... Go with the concept of making the school healthy and them removing the unhealthy machines. As far as I know the vending machines are a nice bit of cash for the school, uni etc who have one so have your business case sorted out too when talking to them

thanks for your feedback

ronaneire

sky19821127 wrote: »

It is not really a problem now,as this system is already built in to the vending machine offerred from our franchisor HUMAN. and purchase proce for this machine is quite affordable
say 8999 dollars for wholesale price!

Shipping costs? Import duty?

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

Shipping costs? Import duty?

It is a good point indeed !
we will defo take this into consideration.

sky19821127

sky19821127 wrote: »

thanks for your feedback

schools are our main target as we also seeking to work with schools to promote healthy lifestyle not only make profits

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

Shipping costs? Import duty?

products will be distributed from the local wholesaler to eliminate that problem
however, for the machines, there is no way to bypass theose costs as our supplier is only operating in the US

ronaneire

sky19821127 wrote: »

products will be distributed from the local wholesaler to eliminate that problem
however, for the machines, there is no way to bypass theose costs as our supplier is only operating in the US

But have you factored these into your costs?

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

But have you factored these into your costs?

From H.U.M.A.N
We can see the shipping cost per machine to a foreign country like canada is 750 $

We will need to find out the exact cost to ireland though. shouldn't be too expensive than that

ronaneire

sky19821127 wrote: »

From H.U.M.A.N
We can see the shipping cost per machine to a foreign country like canada is 750 $

We will need to find out the exact cost to ireland though. shouldn't be too expensive than that

Canada is next to America. Shipping would either be via water or plane. As I mentioned in a previous post you would need to check out import duty and VAT and include these into your plan then.

sky19821127

ronaneire wrote: »

Canada is next to America. Shipping would either be via water or plane. As I mentioned in a previous post you would need to check out import duty and VAT and include these into your plan then.

We will indeed . Thanks for bring it up!

BusinessForums

I think it is going to be very difficult to replace vending machines that are in situ with these one. The best you could hope to do would be to deploy these along side current machines. And I'll tell you why I say that;

1. From the looks of the picture the product selection is a lot smaller than current machines. So they market they attract is smaller by default. That means less customers, less profit and less revenue for the location where the machine is located.
2. The setup seems overly complicated. Cash less, lcd displays, perishable stock etc. Machines won't be handled with kid gloves. So expect the machines to need replacing. Put them in a school and you can double the maintenance. LCD screens would be a serious weekness. As well as expensive to replace/refit.
3. If it is a toss up between conventional vending and yours I would choose the other one, because it would have bigger sales, less hassle, less problems as they would be field tried and tested.
4. Also, with preishable items etc you may need a chilled vending machine. Imagine mid summer day with fresh fruit etc. It wont stay fresh for long.

Regards,

sky19821127

Could anyone advise if we should use their products mix which is supplied in usa. or better develop our local products. considering their fully tested healthy products would reduce our work in searching for products selection. However,we would consider extra expenses invovled with importing these products from usa.Neverthless many other stores in ireland have managed to sell foreign products imported aboard too, so we can suggest same strategy would work for us ??

BusinessForums

Do not use the product mix from USA.

Coca Cola is different to that which we get here, choclate is different to that which we get here, the US of A have products that we dont have here, We have products that here that they dont have in States.

Do your own research, their marking mix is based on local market research, for local products, for local trends.

NR04

I would use them everyday for chocolate or yogurt rasins, ceral bars, fruit and juices. I would especially use them when I am on the run in places like bus/train stations and at the airport, as there is usually only unhealthy options available at these locations.

sky19821127

NR04 wrote: »

I would use them everyday for chocolate or yogurt rasins, ceral bars, fruit and juices. I would especially use them when I am on the run in places like bus/train stations and at the airport, as there is usually only unhealthy options available at these locations.

That is the point we trying to make - most vending manchines only provide a few healthy products . :rolleyes::rolleyes:

YouProduce

The reason why I like this idea is that "healthy" food is going true a branding revolution. Take Innocent Smoothies as an example. Healthy food no longer has the image of a miserable old woman craying over a boil of porridge. Healthy food is becoming fun and bold, and is associated more & more with being attractive, if not exactly sexual. And what you need is products and companies that are socially conscious and seen as a bit... well, innocent... like Innocent smoothies or Zumo or the natural confectionary company, etc.

You should go to Social Entrepreneurs Ireland also. They give grants to socially conscious businesses as well, so you could get huge publicity through them as they are well-connected individuals, and maybe a grant.

I like it dude, goodluck:)

P.S. If it works here, get Jamie Oliver involved and sell them in the UK also

wyndham

It's a nice idea but the volume and margins just aren't large enough to make it feasible IMO. How much are you budgeting for site rental per machine?

Laser card transactions will cost you 19c each off the top.

Schools are only open 5 days a week, 7 months a year.

Shelf life of fresh fruit drinks is too short=> High labour and transport costs to refill machines, product wastage.

With the regular vending stocklines, machines can be filled to the brim with several hundred units and basically left for weeks or months even if necessary. Soft drinks, chocolate, etc all have a shelf life of several months and that is why they are suitable for vending. Even with these lines, margins are small when VAT and site rental, servicing and refilling are taken into account.