Three exciting days of meeting, greeting, selling and buying - that’s what we found at AVEX 2007 incorporating the Cooler Show. The whole exhibition area was was superbly laid out: the carpet colours clearly defined the two show areas and lots of provision was made for seating and refreshments; the Green Road exhibitors were clearly defined and, a first for AVEX, this year saw promotion staff walking around offering free samples. For the guys this was of great interest with two very attractive “dairy maids” catching their eye! As you will see from one of our pictures VI’s Alastair Weston got hold of them both!! I, l am afraid tackled two tic tacs!!!

The whole three days were busy right up until 4pm on closure on the Thursday with the general comment that quality leads overruled the quantity of visitors; PG Tips reported that they distributed 3000 promotional bags including their adorable “monkey” - those visitors who entered the prize draw for a larger version will find a list of the winners at the end of this article.

The buzzwords at the show were ‘premium’ and ‘antiseptic’ with the industry reacting to consumer demands and looking at solutions to make the operator’s life easier.

Design was very much in view with some superb looking machines, and lots of clear lines obviously showing that a lot of time and effort have gone into making equipment both pleasing to the eye, and relevant to the target audience.

It was commented that there was a lack of new products and that the industry had had two years to come up with more innovations. Those products and new lines we saw were exciting and innovative and we must remember that lots of work is still going on within the industry to produce new equipment and at this stage those companies were not in a position to show with their products currently under trial or in the final throw of completion so please “watch this space” for future updates.

With all the latest trends looking at food labelling and listing contents we are pleased to see that Nestlé are offering a labelling system on their latest equipment: the consumer may now know how many calories are included, fat content etc within each choice made. Great news for those of us out there watching what we eat or calorie counting.

With the government legislation on healthy foods and talk about TFA fats, Aimia launched a TFA-free whitener which is good news for the industry and health conscious consumers. Martin Armitt, marketing controller for Aimia said: “Consumers are exceptionally well informed on issues relating to healthy eating such as TFAs and they expect the food and drink industry to deliver.” Aimia won the Best Health Initiative Award at the Awards Evening with this product.

Multiple Marketing received a lot of interest with their “fit for kids” range with all products on offer having passed the government standards for drinks in school. Roll on September when we may all be clearer on exactly what is to be expected. Multiple Marketing is a innovative company who started addressing these issues some two years ago, well in advance of government legislation.

Nestlé have also been working in this area and had on show “Jusanté” a superb product offering made in front of your eyes: fresh chilled juice, filled into a clear pouch with a screw top, ideal for school children and health fanatics alike.

The packaging and vending system is the brain child of Adam Green of WaterWerkz. Adam was displaying his PouchLink™ system on the Sanden Vendo stand where it received a lot of interest. Three years in development, this equipment offers a cost effective and antiseptic option for operators by using a flash chilling technology which is environmentally friendly and gives a 80% reduction in energy use.

Continuing on the health conscious side Trevor Snaith from Vending Nutritional was rushed off his feet every day. In fact most people were initially going to the stand to see why so many others were there!!! They were offering, and will continue to offer, a superb machine deal to include £400 worth of stock (retail value) until the machine allocation runs out, so all’s not lost if you didn’t get to the show.

Making a return visit to the show was “Danone” who are committed to growing the bottled water sector in the vending channel: they are ideally placed with their two brands Evian and Volvic currently the number 1 and 2 brands within the bottled water market. Brian Powel,l National account manager, says: “By stocking the top selling brands, such as Evian and Volvic, vending operators have a valuable opportunity to further grow the bottled water category value in vending.” Danone’s 33cl bottle is ideally suited for most vending machines and can replace cans without alteration to the machine’s running. The Volvic brand will be supported with a £7m pound marketing campaign, and some of you l am sure will have already seen the “speaking volcano advert”. Also new from Volvic is “Revive” a soft energy sports drinks offered in two flavours Citrus Kick and Berry Blast.

For hot drinks, Kenco was displaying their new “Kenco Elevation” a sustainably developed coffee made from beans sourced from farms certified by the Rain Forest Alliance. Their stand was built to interpret the process and included a display to inform visitors on their work with the Alliance. A working display showed Kenco Singles in action, with a unique combination of consumer favourite brands including a new range of Twining's tea “Singles” which offers a fresh cup each time.

With the “Singles” concept in mind, a stand of interest and intrigue was Bevyz with their product being displayed behind a high sleek black shell. Inside, they had on show the Bevyz multi drink system of hot and cold drinks. The only machine on the market to offer hot, cold and fizzy drinks from the one system, this table top machine offers drinks via capsules with barcoded instructions at the touch of a button. This again is another antiseptic process, which gives ease of use, and removes the worry of cleaning.

Nescafé Accolade is looking to provide the coffee shop experience by offering high quality drinks including frothy cappuccino, milky tasting latte and smooth mochas. Of great interest were the premium 9oz branded paper cups. For hot chocolate, Nestlé have introduced “Aero”- a side-to-side shake concept to provide a instant bubbly hot chocolate drink with no residue. Talking of Hot Chocolate, Cadbury were promoting and distributing their Hot Chocolate via a young man on roller blades with “ghost buster” style drink dispenser system.

Lavazza were exhibiting their ¡Tierra! a 100% Arabica sustainable coffee blend derived from selected communities in South America which is available via their Espresso Point range. Lincoln & York were offering their Private Label blend and fresh brew coffees, with fair trade, organic and Rainforest Alliance accreditations.

Café de Colombia and Complete Coffee were celebrating 80 years of sustainable coffee with a superb band playing music during the course of the day. Everyone visiting their stand got to meet the face of the Colombian coffee growers, ‘Juan Valdez’; you will find a interview with Juan on page 7.

Disposable suppliers seen were RPC Tedeco-Gizeh, Veriplast, The Paper Cup Company and Nupik-Flo. The big talk was on biodegradable and cup size, with 9oz and 12oz sizes in demand. Cup branding and graphics were also high on the list.

Hot food offerings were seen with BRASSERIEexpress and Bon Appetit. Both stands had constant flows of visitors looking for this style of vend suitable for offices, in-store service, hospitality and staff facilities. Speaking with Ian Diaper Operations Manager for BRASSERIEexpress, he said that many clients visiting the stand were interested in more than one machine with some even requiring a quick turn around. The machine was launched last year in Paris and the European market is quite taken with the equipment and amount of product it can supply.

Cadbury, UK’s number one brand, was heavily promoting its “Trident” gum. It’s a long time since a new offering in the gum market has been received and especially one so suitable for our vend market. The packaging is designed to automatically install within vending machines with no changes required to the mechanisms. Trident Soft and Trident Splash have also benefited from a huge TV campaign and its’ no wonder that since January’s launch their market share has reached over 15%.

On the service components side Abbeychart won an award for their LED light which is a revolutionary back lighting system both low on power and long in life which offers an 80% saving on power consumption and is deemed to last 7 times as long than conventional lighting. With us all looking to reduce our carbon footprints this product fell under the “Green Road” and won Best New Technology.

Another lighting product brought to our stand but not exhibiting at the show was the “Topaz” electro luminous poster. This LED panel is extremely thin and can offer as many sequenced lighting graphics as required. Those visiting the Cadbury stand would have seen this product in action on the Hot Chocolate machine - keep reading VI for further information on this Brighter Signs Ltd application.

Another innovative idea was the Vend Miser by EPS - a telescopic arm that sits on top of a chilled vending machine; this arm holds a ‘eye’, which is a motion sensor. The ‘eye’ is wired up to a computerized information box and can tell the machine if people are around or, if quiet, instruct it to switch off, this is great news for carbon footprinting, operators can make savings on power bills and maintenance charges. The clever gadget even takes into consideration the time that is required to safely shut down and also monitors temperature. Current trials are being undertaken in leisure facilities and within office areas where staffs are not around 24/7 and predictions are that it will pay for itself in just under a year.

Whilst visiting the stands we had a introduction to Ryan Binun of Vendmate who was exhibiting for the first time on the Sanden Vendo stand promoting his cost effective user-friendly monitoring telemetry and cashless payment solution for the vending industry. This product works via GPRS network and offers comprehensive solutions on credit card payment, monitoring, smart cards and mobile payments. They are making a trial offer which will gain a lot of interest on the cost alone.

We found RLS Enterprise, new to the UK and over here exhibiting from France, in the Cooler Show section. They are offering a superb water based telemetry service focused on the 21st century water cooler market and offer a fully integrated management service, which is already successfully running on the continent. Telemetry, Internet interfaces and M2M are of great interest to us this month especially - you will read more on this area further on in this issue.

Whilst walking around the Cooler Show, we met and spoke with many companies and we were shown POUs of a robust nature, stream lined versions and colourful graphics. Apuro were promoting the ACIS range of products: two floor and two tabletop machines. Aqua Cure are manufacturers and distributors of water filtration products and offer the leading Aqua Dosa brand. Aquator were promoting their free training for installation and servicing of the water coolers they sell. Eden Springs won the award for Best Health Marketing - you can read more about the awards and winners following this review. Fonthill were promoting their brand and the fact that their water is not only naturally filtered through limestone but their plant has been approved by the Brussels based National Sanitation Foundation.

With so many water cooler companies exhibiting we were pleased to find Ian Devine of Kleena Coola rushed off his feet and taking many orders, with over 40 products on show and an arrangement with a EA approved waste company, Kleena Coola really is a full service company.

There were many more key machine producers whom we would have liked to have interviewed. However, due to their stands being busy with key people tied up in the selling process, we were unable to get to speak to them. Following this report we have a review of the products seen and Stars of the Show.