A Brief History of Vending

VENDING MACHINES

Vending machines aren't really a part of amusement arcades but they have their own curious history. The ancient Greeks invented the first coin operated vending machine – an urn that dispensed holy water when a coin was inserted, described by Hero of Alexander in his book ‘Pneumatic’.

Machines for vending snuff, postcards and even a change machine appeared in the late 18th century, but vending did not become popular until a rash of patents in the 1880s for coin acceptor mechanisms that could distinguish genuine coins from fakes. Since then, an enormous variety of vending machines have been tried. There was a craze for coin-operated bars and cafes in France and Germany in the early 1900s. There was another vending growth craze in the US in the 1950s.

In the UK there were automated motorway service stations in the late 1960s. The hot meals were stored cold and came out of the vending machine with a plastic 'key'. You were supposed to put the meal and the key into a microwave oven. The service stations were very busy,but the keys were very brittle, the plates came out extremely hot - the result was pandemonium - crying children, the floor awash with spilt meals, the ovens jammed by broken bits of key and frantic staff producing ordinary food from the back of the house

Its hard to think of anything that someone hasn't tried to sell in a vending machine. Its easy to make mechanisms to vend long thin things - but I do worry what the machine in the middle might be vending. Japan probably has more vending machines than any other country today. They even have one that vends live lobsters. And these are obviously popular enough in some places to have three in a row.

Major Manufacturers

• Automatic Products, a Crane Co. company
  
• Crane National, a Crane Co. company
  
• Dixie-Narco Inc., a Crane Co. company
  
• Glasco Polyvend Lektrovend, known as GPL, a Crane Co. company
  
• Royal Vendors
  
• Vendo
  
• U Select It, a Wittern Group company

More Vending History & Information

In the United States, vending machines generally serve the purpose of selling snacks and beverages, but are also common in busy locations to sell other items such as newspapers. Another common class of vending machines are photo booths. Items sold via vending machine vary by country and region. For example, some countries sell alcoholic beverages such as beer through vending machines, while other countries do not allow this (usually because of dram shop laws). A number vending machine is also used at many outlets, where a customer has to press a button on the machine and a number is printed on a slip of paper and has to wait untill his number is called by the service provider.

Cigarettes were commonly sold in the U.S. through these machines, but this practice is increasingly rare due to concerns about underaged buyers. Sometimes a pass has to be inserted in the machine to prove one's age. In some European countries, by contrast, cigarette machines are still common. Oddly, vending machines were used from the 1950s well into the 1970s to sell life insurance policies covering death in the event that the buyer's flight crashed. Such policies were quite profitable, because the risk of any given flight crashing was (and remains) very low, but this practice gradually disappeared due to the tendency of American courts to strictly construe such policies against their sellers, such as Mutual of Omaha.

History

The first vending machine is believed to have been invented by Hero of Alexandria, a first-century inventor. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed a fixed amount of holy water.[2] When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened up a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counter-weight would snap the lever back up and turn off the valve.

Despite this early precedent, vending machines had to wait for the Industrial Age before they came to prominence. The first modern coin-operated vending machines were introduced in London, England in the early 1880s, dispensing post cards. The first vending machine in the U.S. was built in 1888 by the Thomas Adams Gum Company, selling gum on train platforms. The idea of adding simple games to these machines as a further incentive to buy came in 1897 when the Pulver Manufacturing Company added small figures which would move around whenever somebody bought some gum from their machines. This simple idea spawned a whole new type of mechanical device known as the "trade stimulators". The birth of pinball is ultimately rooted in these early devices.

Japanese vending machines

In Japan, with a high population density, limited space, a preference for shopping on foot or by bicycle, and low rates of vandalism and petty crime, there seems to be no limit to what is sold by vending machines. While the majority of machines in Japan are stocked with drinks, snacks, and cigarettes, one occasionally finds vending machines selling items such as bottles of liquor, cans of beer, fried food, underwear, pornography and sexual lubricants, and potted plants. Japan has the highest number of vending machines per capita, with about one machine for every 23 people.[3]
The first vending machine in Japan was made of wood and sold postage stamps and post cards. About 80 years ago, there were vending machines that sold sweets called "Glico". In 1967, the 100-yen coin was distributed for the first time, and vending machine sales skyrocketed overnight, selling a vast variety of items everywhere.
In Japan, vending machines are known as jidōhanbaiki (from jidoō, or "automatic"; hanbai, or "vending"; and ki, or "machine"), jihanki for short.
In 1999, the estimated 5.6 million coin- and card-operated Japanese vending machines generated $53.28 billion in sales. Besides the items mentioned previously, Japanese vending machines sell or have sold in the past:

• Airsoft Pistols
  
• Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
  
• Balloons[5]
  
• Batteries
  
• Blood pressure measurement service
  
• Blood type-based condoms
  
• Canned oden[6]
  
• CDs / DVDs
  
• Cup udon
  
• Dry ice
  
• Farm-fresh eggs
  
• Farm-fresh vegetables[7]
  
• Fishing line, hooks, and bait
  
• Flowers
  
• French fries
  
• Frequent flier miles tabulation and credit
  
• Freshly ground and brewed coffee
  
• Fried food
  
• Games for the Famicom Disk System
  
• Ice cream
  
• Kerosene
  
• Live lobsters[8]
  
• Mechanized parking
  
• Metered parking
  
• Mobile telephone photograph printing service
  
• Mobile telephone recharging service (The user locks his or her plugged telephone in place to charge while he or she shops.)
  Natto[9]
  
• Pachinko (gambling) balls redeemable for prizes or money
  
• Pay-per-view television cards (in the hospital)　
  
• Pearl jewelry
  
• Photograph printing service (accepts data from smart media, memory sticks, compact flashes, zip drives, compact discs, floppy discs, and other input media)
  
• Pokémon cards
  
• Pornography
  
• Postcards
  
• Recycling service
  
• Refrigerated food storage lockers
  
• Rhinoceros beetles (sold as children's pets)
  
• Rice
  
• Rice cleaning service (not a vending machine per se)
  
• Toilet paper (in front of public lavatory)
  
• Used schoolgirl panties
  
• Water from hot springs

In Japan, vending machine goods and services cost as little as 80 and as much as 3,000 yen.

Automatiek

A common type of snack bar in the Netherlands is called automatiek and is similar to an automat. It has a wall lined with coin-operated machines. Each has a vertical row of little windows, with a (usually hot) snack behind each, e.g. a croquette, a frikandel or a hamburger.

After inserting a coin into a slot, an individual opens one of the windows and removes a snack. The machines are heated so that the snacks stay hot. Behind the machine is the kitchen where the snacks are prepared, with the little windows being re-supplied from the back. These vending machines are often located at railway stations or in busy shopping streets.

Innovations

Vending has gone through significant changes over the decades. Many machines are still evolving to take credit cards and monitor machines from afar. Doug M. Sanford of Vending Times notes that "many vendors today do not remember the urgency with which industry leaders called on their peers to install coin mechanisms that held the patron's money in escrow until the vend was made; to post a telephone number that a customer could call to report a failure and request a refund; to make sure their drivers were cleaning the machines adequately and replacing burnt-out lamps; and so on and on". More recent innovations include improved coin and bill validation and the rapid adoption of sense-and-feedback systems to verify that the vend was made.

One of the newest vending innovations is telemetry. According to Michael Kasavana, National Automatic Merchandising Association Endowed Professor at The School for Hospitality Business, Michigan State University, the advent of reliable, affordable wireless technology has made telemetry practical and provided the medium through which cashless payments can be authenticated. This is important because research shows that 50% of consumers will not make a purchase from a vending machine if its "use exact change only" light is on. Machines equipped with telemetry can transmit sales and inventory data to a route truck in the parking lot so that the driver knows exactly what products to bring in for restocking. Or the data can be transmitted to a remote headquarters for use in scheduling a route stop, detecting component failure or verifying collection information. Telemetry could be one of the most significant developments in vending technology since the invention of the bill changer.
With consumers wanting quick and convenient access to competitively priced products, the vending industry has seen a great deal of growth over the last ten years. Vending offers new entrepreneurs a way to start businesses which can grow quickly. Snack, beverage, candy and food vending machines continue to be the most lucrative and stable in the market place. New innovations in service vending machines include internet kiosks and DVD vending. Cashless vending now allows consumers to use debit cards for added convenience. Vending is a multi-billion dollar industry, and growing.

In order to prevent injuries or death from tipping or striking the machine, most modern snack vending machines equipped with spirals to hold products contain lasers near the access door at the bottom. If a purchased item does not break the laser beam when falling, the spirals will automatically turn, usually three times to ensure that a product will fall. If this still does not occur, the customer will be asked to make another selection or will be refunded their money.

215 B.C	Device to dispense holy water in the temples of Egypt, described by the mathematician Hero who live in Alexandria
500 A.D.	Coffee is first cultivated
1076 A.D.	Chinese produce coin operated pencil vendors
1660	The Dutch introduces coffee to America
1700	Coin-operated tobacco boxes appear in English taverns
1822	First expresso machine deveolped in France
1886	U.S. gants several patents for coin-operated dispensers
1888	Thomas Adams company installs Tutti-Frutte gum machines on New York elevated train platforms
1901	Just-add-hot-water "instant" coffee was invented by Satori Kato of Chicago
1902	Horn and Hardart baking Company opens Automat restaurant in Philadelphia
1905	U.S. Post Office begins to use stamp vendors
1926	First commercial cigarette vending machines come on the market.
1930	Invention of the first slug rejectors facilitates large-scale application of retailing through vending machines.
1930	Bottled soft drink machines cooled with ice appear on the market
1936	National Automatic Merchandising Association is founded
1937	Coca-Cola bottle vendor built by The Vendolator Co in Fresno, CA
1946	Invention of the first coffee vendors leads to use of vending machines for coffee break.
1950	First refrigerated sandwich vendors expand lunch menu
1957	U.S. Public Health Service approves Model Vending Sanitation Code, and NAMA establishes industry’s first evaluation program to certify vending equipment Ice served for the first time in cup soft drink
1958	Milk shake vending machine introduced
1960	Dollar bill changers are added to vending banks. Single cup coffee vending machines introduced
1961	Canned Soft Drink vendors offer customers a new beverage option
1963	Vending companies begin furnishing microwave ovens to heat refrigerated foods
1968	Term "OCS" for Office Coffee Service introduced
1970	Electric data retrieval system for machines introduced by International Totalizing System Electronic components applied to vending machines by Wurlitzer & RMi
1972	Glass front snack machine introduced by Polyvend
1978	Water vending machines introduced
1983	French fry machines introduced
1985	Credit card/debit card devices for vending machines introduced
1986	100th Anniversary of vending in U.S.
1987	First hand-held computers electronically capture vending data
1987	Frozen food vendors introduced
1988	First bean-grinders introduced in coffee machines
1991	Flavored coffees, espresso, cappuccino introduced in machines
1992	Bag-in-box syrup containers installed in cold beverage machines.
1993	First remote wireless transmission of data from machines to warehouses.
1995	Coffee becomes world’s most popular beverage with over 400 billion cups consumed every year.
1999	New dollar coin introduced by U.S. Mint
2005	NAMA launches its Balanced for Life Health and Wellness Initiative to educate people about the importance of a balanced diet and physical activity.