up after eating it.”) But regardless of whether work deadlines or following Selena Gomez on Instagram is keeping consumers from cooking and going to a store to shop for food, the demand for ready-to-eat food seems to be growing.

CURRENT TREND 3: Online ordering and mobile applications. With each passing month, more and more food products are available online. An increasing number of national and local food sources are making their products available for online ordering and delivery. (Delivery still occurs via person as no one has figured out yet how to email a pizza). As turnaround and delivery times get faster, the convenience of online ordering could eventually begin to rival the convenience of vending machines.

So what do these trends mean for the future of vending machines? Well, these are likely to lead to several future trends in vending machines:

FUTURE TREND 1: Vending machines

that provide healthy food. An argument against vending machines carrying healthy foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, is the higher cost of having to refrigerate and frequently replace the food when it spoils.

Another argument is that people

have not been demanding such food in vending machines. But as storage technology improves and calls for healthy food in vending machines increase, some businesses having been moving toward vending machines that carry healthier food.

For example, in 2008, Sean Kelly and Andrew Mackensen founded H.U.M.A.N. (helping unite mankind and nutrition), a healthy vending company that aims to provide vending machines that serve healthier (lower fat, few additi- ves, organic, and locally sourced) foods.

FUTURE TREND 2: Vending machines

that provide nutritional and health education. Other food sources such as restaurants and grocery stores have been voluntarily (or involuntarily) moving toward providing more nutritional information and education about their products.

For example, New York City passed

an ordinance last year that requires chain restaurants to place a salt shaker icon on menu items to indicate food that exceeds the daily recommended limit for salt intake.

Also, a number of grocery stores have

been taking steps to offer more nutrition information and tips to choose healthier foods. Te Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already requires operators who own or operate 20 or more vending machines to disclose calorie information for food sold from vending machines, subject to certain exemptions.

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