January 10th 2012.- Fresh Healthy Vending started in 2010 with an idea – one that would transform the vending machine industry from the unhealthy reputation it had earned over the years. Now, with over 1100 machines placed in various locations around the country, as well as in Canada, they have helped to revolutionize the industry, by offering machines stocked with all healthy food options. They have also narrowed down the top five types of facilities where their machines can be found.
“Our machines are found in a wide range of places,” explains Jolly Backer, the chief executive officer of Fresh Healthy Vending (freshvending.com). “They are ideal anywhere people want convenient access to snacks or want healthy foods on the go.”
Here are the top five types of places, in random order, where consumers can find Fresh Healthy Vending machines:
1. Military Bases. Those in uniform are seeking out healthy snack options at Charleston Air Force Base, Camp Pendleton, Little Rock Air Force Base, McGuire Air Force Base, Miramar Marine Base, and Fort Campbell Army Base.
2. Corporations. Major companies, as well as office complexes, around the nation have Fresh Healthy Vending machines, including Apple, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., Tap Out, Cameco Corporation, Pacific Science Center, Advantage Rent a Car, New Frontier Media, Charles Schwab, Honda, Alcatel-Lucent, JB Hunt, Toni & Guy Salons, and Tiffany & Co.
3. Hospitals. Several major hospitals and health-related companies offer healthy vending as an option, including Bon Secours Hospital, Pacific Life, GE Healthcare, and St. Luke’s Hospital.
4. Hotels. Travelers seeking healthy on-the-go snacks will find such options at the Hyatt Regency and Crowne Plaza Hotel.
5. Schools. Schools at just about every level are offering the healthy vending machines, including Harvard, Boston Ballet, Paul Mitchell – The School, University of Southern California, and University of California, San Diego.
”Fresh is getting contacted daily, from both public and private schools, big corporations, hospitals, medical centers, military bases, health clubs, and countless other types of locations across the U.S. and Canada,” added Backer. “Our database now boasts thousands of locations that are seeking Fresh Healthy Vending machines, which makes it the perfect time for people to buy a Fresh franchise for their area.” Fresh Healthy Vending machines provide all-healthy food and beverage options. Each machine is filled with healthy snack options, such as drinks, fresh fruits and vegetables, protein and granola bars, yogurt, and baked chips and crackers. Their machines are located in schools, hospitals, office buildings, and workout facilities. To learn more about franchising a Fresh franchise in your area, visit their site at www.freshhealthyvending.com.
About Fresh Healthy Vending
Based in San Diego, Fresh Healthy Vending is a company that started in 2010 and is revolutionizing vending machines by filling them with healthy, natural food options. Dubbed the “future of vending,” they are leading the way in healthy food vending. Their machines offer 100-percent juices, fresh vegetables, fruits, smoothies, and yogurts. The Fresh Healthy Vending machines are franchised and are being placed in schools, offices and other locations throughout the country. To learn more about Fresh Healthy Vending, visit the website at freshvending.com.
Long Island Parent Source, January 2012.- It is reported that millions of schools and workplaces around the nation have vending machines available – but do these vending machines offer healthy snack ideas? I would think that from a school perspective, most schools that offer vending machines are at the middle-school and high-school level, where kids are spending time there in addition to the regular school hours due to club attendance and sports practices. Regardless of age, when that mid-afternoon craving for a snack hits, both adults and kids have difficulty finding a healthy choice that won’t leave them feeling guilty or gaining weight after a few weeks or months.
Although vending machines generally have a bad rap for being filled with sugar and candy and soda, the good news is that there are vending machines available that are completely stocked with guilt-free, healthy snack choices. Many and businesses have opted for vending machine makeovers to promote healthy snacking – stocking machines with healthy snacks such as granola bars, fresh fruits and vegetables, protein bars, yogurt and baked crackers and chips. The healthy alternatives are truly a win-win for everyone involved – if you eat a healthy snack, you will feel good and be more productive, and most importantly, healthy.
Many schools and workplaces have been resistant to the change because they feel that it will be extremely time consuming or that the students/employees don’t want the change. If your school or office has a vending machine that is not stocked with the most healthy snacks, here are some tips to successfully makeover that vending machine into a healthy snack refuge.
1. Get the facts. There are many good reasons to seek a vending machine makeover. Gather some facts about obesity, such as these trends provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stating that a third of all adults are now obese and that 17 percent of all children are considered obese. There are good reasons for wanting to provide a healthy work and school environment, all the way down to the snacks in the vending machine.
2. Find supporters. The more people there are in the office or school who would like a vending machine makeover, the better. Circulate a petition or organize a committee of people to work together toward achieving that goal.
3. Offer alternatives. Be ready to suggest a way to outsource the transition, such as a company who can fill the vending machines with healthy alternatives. The decision makers will be more apt to jump at the chance for the makeover if they realize how simple and cost-effective it can be.
4. Be heard. The powers-that-be need to know that people want healthier options in the vending machines. This can be done by writing a letter or arranging a meeting with administration to discuss the topics in an open environment.
5. Follow through. Once the school or office has been informed that change is needed, it is important to follow through with the request. While avoiding badgering them is important, it is equally vital that the issue remain on their radar screen so that change can eventually take place.
January 2012, Evansville, Indiana.- Amy and Steve Bouchie’s vending machine resembles the same chubby apparatus taking refuge inside nearly every office building or school, welcoming travelers at most highway rest stops, and beckoning to passersby with snacks to quench midday hunger pangs. Aside from the branding covering the exterior, it looks like the typical vending machine. It’s not. It’s healthy.
After four years of owning a Subway franchise, the Bouchies sold their Evansville location in January 2011, but their spirit for franchise ownership never diminished. “When we knew we were going to sell the Subway, we started looking into new franchises,” says Amy, an Ameriprise financial advisor. “We had a good experience with the Subway being a franchise.” A month later, they purchased a new franchise, Fresh Healthy Vending. The timing felt right. According to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, 12 states passed new laws on school nutrition in 2010. The emphasis on making schools healthier, says Steve, a logistics manager at Nestle, makes education institutions perfect for healthy vending.
The point, Amy says, reaches beyond schools and into the community. She hopes to encourage better eating habits across Evansville. “I always have gotten frustrated that I like to eat healthy, and when I go up to a vending machine, the only option is sugar,” she says.
The San Diego-based healthy vending company offers the opposite: more than 400 snacks such as 100-percent juices, fruits, smoothies, granola bars, baked chips, and healthy drinks in dual climate machines (allowing perishables and non-perishables to share the same space). The Bouchies bought 10 vending machines to be placed throughout Evansville. As of July 2011, nine have found homes.
The items in the machines differ from place to place. Dancers at Evansville Ballet may want different snacks than weightlifters at Nitro Fitness. The couple also receives input from two business partners: their 14 and 16-year-old sons. “When we looked at the products that were available,” Amy says, “our boys were both very positive toward it and felt like kids would eat those things.”
Fresh Healthy Vending machine locations include Eastland Mall, Evansville Ballet, Nitro Fitness, Newburgh Tumbling, Reitz Memorial High School, Westside Catholic School, and Walt’s Drive-A-Way.
December 2011, Houma, Louisiana.- Regarding your article, “Healthy vending machines come to area” by Cara Bayles, hearty congratulations to Nick Bruce for bringing the franchise Fresh Healthy Vending to Terrebonne and Lafourche.
Proud to see the Terrebonne Parish Main Library and the Government Tower among the first in our community to invite them in.
With obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease all influenced by diet, this is a positive step to provide a better choice in “snacks.”
I will be interested to see exactly what is offered and hope that parent groups, teachers and administrators take a good look at perhaps affording students a healthy alternative in the near future.
January 3rd 2012, CLEVELAND, Ohio — Maybe the extra time you got to spend with your kids over the holiday break from school has shown you — yet again — just how marketing affects what they want to eat.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says that children see about 40,000 television commercials per year. Think about that: 40,000. Naturally, it turns out that most of those ads are for high-calorie snacks and sugary cereals made by conglomerates like General Mills and Kellogg’s.
Companies wouldn’t spend that money on commercials and marketing if they weren’t hugely effective, and research has shown these ads get children to ask — or is beg a better word? — for more junk food. That undoubtedly contributes to a third of the nation’s children being overweight or obese (a rate that has more than tripled in the last three decades).
Another way of looking at it: Thanks to sweet snacks and soft drinks, teens ages 14-18 are consuming an average of 34 teaspoons of sugar per day. It’s one thing to eat homemade cookies over the holidays — it’s another when processed, packaged snacks with 30-plus ingredients, which masquerade as food, become a daily habit. Jolly Backer, the chief executive officer of the San Diego-based Fresh Healthy Vending, a company that offers healthful choices in vending machines, offers five ways to do that:
1. Get kids involved. Children are more likely to remember information when they’re participating — so, help them learn about healthy food and nutrition, by getting them involved in planning and preparing meals and, in summer, growing vegetables in a garden. Or give your child $5 to spend in the produce department, or at the farmers market, on fruits or vegetables of their choice. Let the child explore. No matter what he or she picks out, find a healthy recipe you can prepare together.
2. Teach them. Even younger children can learn about what is healthy and not, by reading labels and making healthy choices. Take the time to teach them how to read labels, and why making healthy food choices is important.
3. Provide healthy snacks. Children usually need a couple of snacks to keep them going throughout the day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that kids keep snacks to under 100 calories, and those snacks should be low in fat and sugar. Help kids learn to identify healthier snack options when they see them, such as fruits and vegetables, baked chips, yogurt and granola bars. (Note, however, that some yogurts and granola bars are so high in sugar they might as well be ice cream and cookies. Check the labels for sugar content. )
4. Be a role model. One of the most important things parents can do to get their kids to eat healthier is to model healthy eating habits. When parents eat healthfully — and don’t just head to fast-food restaurants several times each week — they are demonstrating something important to their children. Consistently modeling this influences children, even if it is years later.
5. Influence change. Work with school administrators and others to get healthier snacks and lunch options on campus and, yes, in vending machines. It isn’t that hard to add at least a few better choices. And, if you’re feeling really inspired, work with local legislators to place limits on junk-food commercials on television. “The more that parents make an effort to focus on healthier food options for their kids, the likelier kids are to become willing participants,” says Backer. “When we look at what is happening with health issues in this country, there is just no getting around this problem. We have to create a healthier eating environment for our children, whether at home, at school, or at a recreation center.”
Fresh but still fat While cooking from scratch is almost always a better option than buying processed or fast foods, it doesn’t give anyone a pass to go crazy with butter, cream and cheese.
Yet that is what some, even many, cookbooks would have you do. So every year, dietitians with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, or PCRM, call out the five worst offenders –high-profile collections that encourage Americans to fill up on high-fat dishes, even as the country struggles with record levels of obesity and diabetes.
This year the list includes: Paula Deen’s “Southern Cooking Bible,” “The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook,” (yes, because of its plethora of grilled-meat recipes), “Guy Fieri Food,” the Neelys’ “Celebration Cookbook” and, surprisingly, Jamie Oliver’s “Meals in Minutes.”
Oliver has become widely known — and in health circles, celebrated — for trying to radically change the food offered in school cafeterias through his “Food Revolution” series. He’s working to bring his Jamie Oliver’s “Kitchens” — where he and his staff teach people cooking skills so they can easily prepare healthy food at home — to a number of cities (including Cleveland).
He’s being chastised for his meatball sandwich recipe, which PCRM says is loaded with cholesterol, sodium and saturated fat.
“It’s great that Jamie Oliver and other chefs are focusing on fresh and local ingredients, but some of these recipes have more calories and cholesterol than a Big Mac,” says Susan Levin, PCRM’s nutrition education director. “The real key to healthful eating is moving away from high-fat, meaty meals that increase the risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer.”
Levin says she commends Oliver for many of his efforts, “especially his drawing attention to problems in school lunches. It’s the third rail, and I’m proud of him for touching it. But there’s a slight disconnect when you look at his cookbook — even though he’s using fresh ground beef, it’s still full of the same fat that a Big Mac has.” Paula Deen gets special notice, says Levin — as she did last year, for her super-high-fat recipes. Just three of her Hot Buffalo Wings contain 910 calories and 85 grams of fat.
“She’s such a beautiful woman and I love her personality and gusto for life, but publicly she is advocating the worst possible foods that we could be eating. It’s almost a caricature of cooking and food.”
So, you say, you’re naturally thin and you look fit, despite eating a high-fat diet? Don’t kid yourself, Levin says. “You don’t have to be fat on the outside to be fat on the inside and for your arteries to be clogged. I can’t emphasize that enough.
“I don’t care what you’re doing in the gym. It’s synergistic, but it doesn’t work the other way around.”
Exercise, she says, is the cherry on top for “mood, toning, bone density. But in terms of weight loss and artery clearing and blood-pressure control, you’ve got to clean from the inside out.”
West Palm Beach VA Medical Center, December 2011.- It is with great excitement that the Canteen Service presents Healthy Vending to the VA Medical Center. One machine is located in the Main Atrium of the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center and the other is in the Cancer Center waiting room.
All of the products are healthy and natural and many are organic. We take great pride in choosing the most delicious and healthy items that you can feel good about choosing. You will not find any high fructose corn syrup, added sugar, chemicals, or synthetic additives and preservative in any of the items.
A few items may be changed each month, so look for new flavors and delicious, healthy new options! Enjoy and healthy regards.
January 10th 2012.- Fresh Healthy Vending started in 2010 with an idea – one that would transform the vending machine industry from the unhealthy reputation it had earned over the years. Now, with over 1100 machines placed in various locations around the country, as well as in Canada, they have helped to revolutionize the industry, by offering machines stocked with all healthy food options. They have also narrowed down the top five types of facilities where their machines can be found.
Long Island Parent Source, January 2012.- It is reported that millions of schools and workplaces around the nation have vending machines available – but do these vending machines offer healthy snack ideas? I would think that from a school perspective, most schools that offer vending machines are at the middle-school and high-school level, where kids are spending time there in addition to the regular school hours due to club attendance and sports practices. Regardless of age, when that mid-afternoon craving for a snack hits, both adults and kids have difficulty finding a healthy choice that won’t leave them feeling guilty or gaining weight after a few weeks or months.
January 2012, Evansville, Indiana.- Amy and Steve Bouchie’s vending machine resembles the same chubby apparatus taking refuge inside nearly every office building or school, welcoming travelers at most highway rest stops, and beckoning to passersby with snacks to quench midday hunger pangs. Aside from the branding covering the exterior, it looks like the typical vending machine. It’s not. It’s healthy.
December 2011, Houma, Louisiana.- Regarding your article, “Healthy vending machines come to area” by Cara Bayles, hearty congratulations to Nick Bruce for bringing the franchise Fresh Healthy Vending to Terrebonne and Lafourche.
January 3rd 2012, CLEVELAND, Ohio — Maybe the extra time you got to spend with your kids over the holiday break from school has shown you — yet again — just how marketing affects what they want to eat.
West Palm Beach VA Medical Center, December 2011.- It is with great excitement that the Canteen Service presents Healthy Vending to the VA Medical Center. One machine is located in the Main Atrium of the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center and the other is in the Cancer Center waiting room.