Confectionery continues to provide retailers with excellent sales opportunities in 2008. The Confectionery market - valued at £4.5 billion, accounts for 70% of the total value of the £6.4 billion Sweet Snacks market.

The AVEX organising team is determined that AVEX 2009 will offer a totally different experience to previous exhibitions. Changes already announced are a new venue in a new city and the move to a two day exhibition. The exhibition will be held at a new time of year - early Summer.  

Leisure Industry Week (LIW) 2008, incorporating Sports Development Week, will be held at the Birmingham NEC on 23-25 September 2008.

Marco Beverage Systems will preview its latest energy efficient water boiler range, the Ecoboiler on Stand S1610 at Hotelympia 2008.

Italian espresso machine manufacturer, Rancilio, will launch its re-modelled Classe 10 espresso machine in conjunction with its UK distributor, The Coffee Machine Company, on Stand S2020 at Hotelympia 2008. The Classe 10 is Rancilio's flagship model, and this is the first re-styling of the machine since its successful entry into the market six years ago. A host of new, innovative and technologically progressive features make this one of the most advanced espresso machines available on the market.

ISO has launched a new CD that contains the ISO 22000 series of standards developed to help operators in the food chain to implement food safety management systems. The CD also includes related standards for conformity assessment professionals involved in the certification of food safety management systems and in the accreditation of bodies carrying out such certification.

• Saturday 9 February2008 - the Northern Dinner Dance at Carden Parkin Cheshire - Places still available!
• Tuesday 4 March 2008 - the Midland Region AGMwill be heldat Coors Brewery -put thedate in your diary.

The Really Sensible Trading Company, sole UK importer of thermal drinkware from American manufacturer, Planetary Design, is introducing a range of thermal cafetières in vibrant red at Hotelympia 2008 on Stand S1111. In all, three of the Company's cafetières are available in the new colour - the Double Shot, the Desk Press and the 20oz Table Top Wide Base model.

The California Raisins Innovation Award is in its 4th great year and the winning entry this year could win thousands of ££££'s worth of advertising and PR for their company.

11 firms including Coca-Cola Company, Groupe Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo voluntarily sign up to EU Pledge programme which curbs soft drink advertising aimed at under-12s.

Irish food group Greencore announces two UK acquisitions, frozen cake producer The Ministry of Cake and Danone?s Blaen Twyni mineral water facility, for a reported £15m.

The Environment Agency has awarded national vending operator, the Coffee Point Group a three-year contract to supply and operate high quality vending services across the North East and Yorkshire.

Müllerlight® bounced back onto TV screens in January with the launch of ‘Trampoline' - a new 30 second commercial which is the latest addition to Müller® UK's evolutionary Lid Lickers campaign.

Zenith's topical market report on ready to drink coffee provides the definitive analysis on this evolving beverage category and the many challenges it faces.

The EVA announces that its EVA CVS 1.3 is now finalised and available. It has been endorsed by the US Vending Association NAMA, as the standard for Cashless Vending. The main innovation is the ability to fit a compact reader to  table top machines.

Kepak Convenience Foods has concluded an agreement with 3663 First for Foodservice whereby the wholesale distributor will supply the market-leading range of Rustlers hot snacking products into the foodservice sector.

Healthy Schools Caterer of the Year with California Raisins to find the healthiest school caterer in the UK has been launched for 2008! Enter to win £1,000 of catering equipment.

North Tyneside Council has turned to Coffee Point as part of their commitment to provide the borough's sports centres with healthy snacks.

In India, Tata Tea teams up with British football club Arsenal to launch a football tournament and coaching programme aimed at 10-15 year olds.

Wittern Limited has changed its name to Coffetek.  The move is in line with the strategy outlined in July 2007 following Coffetek's acquisition of a majority shareholding in the Wittern business - a move that has initiated a major investment programme that will see a significant expansion of its product portfolio and strengthening of its support service operations.

Leading UK vending services provider Selecta has appointed Dina Soliman as the company's new marketing manager for the UK and Ireland.

North Yorkshire businessman Dave Breckon is a man of many parts - around 20,000 of them, in fact, all destined for vending machines around the globe.

Dave heads up expanding Skipton company Vendparts, which supplies new and refurbished components for virtually all the vending machines operating in today's marketplace.

Transaction Network Services has promoted Thierry Jasserand to be Regional Director of Northern Europe to manage and develop TNS in France, Benelux and Scandinavia.

The case for re use and recycling is overwhelming; worldwide pressure on raw materials and the rapidly decreasing number of landfill sites support the case. The key is to ensure that action taken by Government is as practical and cost effective as possible.

The European Union's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive came into force in July 2007, with a shrug of the shoulders from most businesses in the auto vending industry. 

Help is at hand for agents and vending machine distributors to do their bit for the environment and ensure they keep on the right side of the latest green laws.

The ‘Environment' is becoming a bigger issue every day. As consumer concern grows, media coverage increases and politicians pronounce on an ever increasing list of measures that ‘will save the planet'.

Müller® Dairy UK became the first dairy company in the UK to join the Carbon Trust initiative which measures the carbon footprint of a product or service and identifies areas where carbon emissions can be reduced.

Disposables have become indispensable to the foodservice industry but the downside is the millions of tonnes of resultant waste that is either dumped in landfills or incinerated, creating atmospheric pollution.

Zenith International started the new year by celebrating its certification under the ISO 14001 worldwide standard for environmental management systems. This adds to its ISO 9001 accreditation for quality management systems in 2000.

Müller® UK has reinforced its commitment to reducing packaging and food waste by signing up to The Courtauld Commitment established by the government-funded WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).

KLIX®, has uncovered a number of new trends and consumer insights into drinks products and their environmental impact.

The European Aluminum Association (EAA) Packaging Group in cooperation with the Romanian metal packaging recycling company AMEP-Pack (member of Can Pack Group S.A., the leading Polish can manufacturer), with the active support of the Romanian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development has launched its plans for a joint aluminium beverage can recycling initiative in Romania. The first collection activities have already begun.

It takes just minutes, yet can last for weeks, costing you valuable sales. Now you can effortlessly wipe out unsightly graffiti with ‘Eliminator' from Safer Systems (UK) Ltd. Eliminator will remove transfer & fly poster glue, marker pens, aerosol spray paint, and pens on a wide range of surfaces, including metal, plastic or spray-painted surfaces.

Aqua Cure plc, brand owners  and Trade distributors of Aqua Dosa^TM  have announced a professional Distributor policy with High Strength Aqua Dosa sanitising solution for all Vending and Water Cooler Companies sanitizing water dispensers .

A well-known retailer recently recorded their annual spend on coffee machine repairs and calculated that 60% of the problems relating to their 150 machines were caused by poor cleaning alone, resulting in a bill for £81,600.

Abbeychart is a major supplier of cleaning and hygiene equipment for the vending, cool water, catering and soft drink dispensing industries.

In the January issue we looked at how branding in the tea market is emphasising green issues and social responsibility. All the majors will point to the excellent level of ethics they apply in the way they trade with suppliers and customers. This issue we look at the Fairtrade crusader of the vending industry: Fairtrade Vending. A discussion with Mike Steel highlighted how the company is setting the benchmark for the industry and investing energy, time and money in providing Fairtrade products for vending operators. Iestyn Armstrong-Smith reports.

Peter Churcher, Tetley's Business Manager Vending, has been with Tetley for the past 16 years. He has spent the last three years growing the vending function, both through traditional products such as Vended Leaf Tea, as well as with speciality teas for hot water vends.

Oxfam's advocacy work to support the agenda of small-scale farmers and workers in the new International Coffee Agreement (ICA) came to successful conclusion at the end of September 2007 as members of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) concluded a year and a half of negotiations.

BT has been buying Fairtrade products for around 8 years, but until now, coffee was always an option with other non-Fairtrade brands available. Rosemary Hough of BT said: "With the improvements in quality and consistency we considered it the right time to move all of our Coffee sold in BT Cafes to a Fairtrade bean.

Nestlé FoodServices understands the importance of providing a Fairtrade solution wherever coffee is served.

Café Bar, a leading UK supplier of hot and cold beverage systems, is increasing its ethically branded range of ingredients with the inclusion of the new Malawi Garden and Kericho Estate teas to the portfolio.

With sales of Fairtrade products increasing 46% year on year1, Fairtrade Fortnight (25th February-9th March), is the perfect opportunity for vendors to switch to ethically sourced products such as Cafédirect, the UK's leading Fairtrade hot beverages' brand.

KLIX® has further strengthened its branded drinks portfolio with the launch of a delicious new Fairtrade tea. Teadirect Fairtrade tea, provided by top Fairtrade brand Cafédirect, has been launched by KLIX in response to increasing consumer demands for socially responsible drinks in the workplace.

The UK consumers' taste for quality coffee and the coffee shop experience shows no sign of fading as the number of branded high street coffee shops in the UK has just reached the 3,000 mark and is expected to double in the future. Consumers are looking for a little luxury, every day by treating themselves to more premium drinks. They are increasingly prepared to pay more for quality and speciality products, but also for ethical products such as Douwe Egberts Good Origin 100% Utz Certified coffee.

A recent visit to the garage highlighted two vending issues, the suitability of plastic cups for hot drinks and what to do with the waste.

• Plastic cups offer a convenient and hygienic, method of providing drinks in the workplace. The cups are ready for use in the vending machine, or at the drinks station, keeping the time taken by staff to get a drink down to a minimum.
• With a brand new plastic cup there are few hygiene concerns, which is not always the case with china cups, which may be badly washed or even chipped or cracked, resulting in an accumulation of bacteria.