In further research it found that: “Women are officially the lunchtime losers, taking the shortest breaks, feeling the most guilt about taking their lunch breaks and spending less on lunch than their male colleagues. Surprisingly, charity workers splash out almost 20% more cash everyday on their lunch than bankers. The average UK worker spends £2.50 everyday on lunch,” said the Group, confirming the price put on it by Warburtons.

More often than not consumers have fridges at home, full to the brim with all the necessary ingredients for lunch, but perfectly good food is simply left to go to waste while yet more money is spent on takeaways and sandwiches from shops, cafes, bars and of course vending machines. Too tired in the evenings to bother with food preparation and in too much of a rush in the mornings to ‘waste’ time making sandwiches - vended food and snacks offer workers an ideal solution. Not only that, but consumers like the ‘treat’ element of food that they haven’t had to make themselves and when work is stressful, the tendency towards it often rises.

Unsurprisingly then, snacking is prevalent among the UK workforce, keen to keep their energy reserves up throughout the day. Nikki Adamo, Head of Category Marketing, Nestlé Professional agrees: “We might not realise it, but as consumers, many of us have various confectionery ‘needs’ throughout the day. We are often driven to purchase to satisfy these needs, whether it’s to increase energy levels, to treat ourselves, or simply to pass the time. So, when it comes to managing your stock, knowing your customers is paramount to your site’s success.

“Offer a selection of products to maximise impulse sales and buy ‘brands’; they’re a safe option and will ensure you cover all consumer preferences. For example, the NESTLÉ MULTISNACK machines can hold up to 1,000 products, helping you to meet demand and secure your profit 24/7.

“Why not make the most of big brand media support and new product initiatives that are reaching out to consumers too? Nestlé has just launched the MILKYBAR Raisin & Biscuit bar for adults. This great new bar is benefiting from a £7m media spend and TV advertising to support and represents a solid opportunity to increase sales.”

Susan Nash, Trade Communications Manager, Cadbury UK has this advice: “Chocolate singles are always a popular choice with shoppers as they can be consumed as an every day treat. There are five Cadbury chocolate singles within the independent channel’s top 10; these are Wispa, Twirl, Crunchie, Double Decker and Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM). Twirl is the number one single serve chocolate bar in the UK and is therefore an extremely important brand to stock to help drive confectionery sales. Wispa is also very popular with consumers and is the number two selling Chocolate single.”

Adds Susan: “Total Confectionery is worth £4.5bn in the latest MAT, up 4.6% being driven by three key categories, Chocolate, Sugar and Gum. Cadbury’s share is worth £1.3bn up 3.3% on last year.”

Hot Food Vending

As the winter nights draw in and workers stay in the office until late, hot food vending saves consumers the hassle of preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner at home.

According to leading market research company Mintel, UK sales of pies and pasties are thriving and by 2012 we’ll be wading our way through over a billion pounds worth of the tasty treats.

Valued at £941 million in 2009, sales are forecast to rise to £962 million by the end of the year. In addition, between 2008 and 2009, sales of pies and pasties increased by around 5% as Brits were faced with rising food prices and sought comfort food items that offered them not only value for money, but a treat they could indulge in.

Nicola O'Dwyer, Marketing Manager for Feasters, comments: “With the increasing trend of vending replacing food service in many businesses, it’s quite a challenge to provide interesting and appetizing meal solutions. Traditionally, consumers could only get sandwiches, crisps, pies and chocolate from vending machines but with our revolutionary ‘Micropack’ we deliver a tasty, hot snack solution.

“Feasters is a leading brand in the microwaveable snack market - and the fastest growing brand in a category that’s also growing 15% year-on-year* - with big consumer demand for our products, and our new vending packs bring a wide choice of popular branded hot snacks into the vending market.

“Our vending range will include our top five leading microwaveable snacks in a format designed to go straight into the microwave - with no need for plates or cutlery - and the patented design delivers ‘microwave baking’ to create a superb oven baked taste.

“Our ‘Micropack’ utilises unique ‘Microvent Technology’ which allows the pack to pop in around 30 seconds of heating, venting any steam. The food is wrapped in a ‘crisper sleeve’ (or susceptor) which creates an ovenbaked microwave baking effect, toasting and browning the bun.

“The specially developed ‘Micropack’ also toasts the sesame seeds on top of the bread buns and rolls, giving off an amazing appetising smell. In short, Feasters ‘Micropack’ packaging enables fast, hassle-free snacking with no mess.”

Another market success is Jofemar UK. Mr Vassilis Gotsis, Managing Director, Jofemar UK explains the company’s journey into hot food vending: “When I became Managing Director of Jofemar UK some years ago, I realised that our future lay in the development of added value vending systems. Many companies can manufacture perfectly adequate beverage vendors and snacks machines. Not everyone has the vision or R&D strength of Jofemar to develop advanced machines for the 21st century.

“Fortunately we had two new developments in our portfolio that met our criteria for profitable growth – the Vision elevator arm merchandiser and the Gourmet hot food vending machine. Some years on, the Vision has now recently been remodelled with stylish graphics and improved insulation. It is ideally suited to serving chilled or ambient food that is difficult to vend from a conventional machine and I mean yoghurt, fruit, baguettes etc.

“The Gourmet hot food vending machine presented a wholly different set of challenges. Here we have a brilliantly effective machine capable of serving piping hot meals prepared within 60 seconds of putting money in the machine. How to market it was the conundrum. We started by selling the machine quite independently of ingredients, allowing operators to choose their own. It is still the case that operators, if they wish, may buy a Gourmet machine from us in Jofemar livery. However, we quickly realised that the route to market was to go down the system route and we saw examples of how this has worked for Jofemar in France and Germany.

­“We set about packaging it as a system and found Fed Well, a major Yorkshire based manufacturer of ready meals for many of the UK’s leading supermarket chains. We have now branded the machine with the Fed Well livery, serving a variety of ready meals. The machine works perfectly well with ambient or chilled food options. A major benefit of ambient products is their long shelf life, which means operators do not need to invest in refrigerated vans and stock turn is not so crucial. So, operators can choose the system approach or do their own thing with a standard Gourmet machine”.

With so much available in vending machines nowadays, the quality, choice and price of which is continually improving, there is little reason to add to our work stress by preparing food at home.

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