AUTOMATIC VENDING ASSOCIATION

www.ava-vending.co.uk

Slightly odd URL - if AVA stands for Automatic Vending Association, I'm not quite sure where the extra Vending comes from. I don't care too much though because it's vending. I love vending machines.

For me, when I think of vending machines, I think of the machine in the lobby at Cheam Baths. Or rather, I think of the machine that was in the lobby at Cheam Baths when I was about nine or ten years old.

My friends and I would go swimming most weekends, especially when they had the Cheam Scream (an inflatable slide) and the Wobstacle Course (an inflatable wobstacle course). Afterwards, we'd wait in the lobby, my friends would play Double Dragon and I'd get a packet of Wheat Crunchies from the vending machine.

Buying crisps from a vending machine is more exciting than playing any arcade game. Even Double Dragon. The lightweight nature of the crisps, plus the size and shape of the packet, means there's a possibility of snagging on what I now know to be called the "helix coil". A Mars Bar is unlikely to snag, its relatively heavy weight means it drops down cleanly into what I have just decided should be called the collection bay. I consider this possibility to be an added thrill, a sense of danger, of risk. Others are traumatised by the experience. But for every crisp-snagging disaster, there is the joy of finding a vending machine where a packet of crisps has already snagged and as a result, you can double up and get two for the price of one.

It's not just crisps and snacks you can get from vending machines. You can get cold drinks, hot drinks, CDs, DVDs, video games and mobiles, books, umbrellas, shoes, pizzas, memory cards, pies, Bentleys, lobsters, underpants but not used underpants, eggs, coat-hangers, worms and pornography.

Quite a lot of those are from Japan, where according to Wikipedia, there is one vending machine for every twenty-three people. Very impressive. The AVA don't seem so concerned with such esoteric vending items, though, they seem to concentrate more on refreshment vending:

Consumers in Britain annually spend some £1.5 billion through the slots of more than 418,000 refreshment vending machines. Every day, 8 million cups of coffee and 2 million cups of tea are vended.

Almost anything can be automatically vended, but the principal food and drink products are:

• Hot and cold beverages
• Cold drinks in bottles, cans or cartons
• Confectionery and savoury snacks
• Sandwiches and snack foods
• Cook/chill dishes (for heating in an adjacent microwave)
• Plated meals
• Ice cream

Pfff, that's boring. "Sandwiches and snack foods", whatever AVA - live lobsters, worms and porn are much better.

You can get water from vending machines. Look, this diagram shows the process water goes though from raincloud to vending machine.



I hope some of the stages have been abbreviated in that diagram, it sort of looks like the rain travels along some pipes until it reaches that bloke's office.

THE GROCER

www.thegrocer.co.uk

Oh my. I think I'm addicted. Seriously. Every week for the last two months or so, I've bought The Grocer. I can't explain why. It makes no sense. It's a trade magazine for food and drink retailers, I work for a DVD distribution company. I should be reading Media Week, or Broadcast, or something like that. Not this. But if I see a headline like "AS MANY AS 50% OF ASDA'S 5,000 NEW ROLLBACKS OFFER JUST A 1p SAVING" or "WHY APPLE PRICES ARE DOWN 20% YEAR-ON-YEAR", sorry, but I've got to buy that magazine.

The current issue is especially good. They do special pull-out guides once a month I guess (the last one was about hot beverages). In this issue, there's a guide to confectionery. It's got Mr T on the front. Mr T says:

Listen up suckers, did you know:

• MARS is the No.1 manufacturer in sales of 'hunger' lines with 59% value share
  
• The hunger category is big and growing
  
• 'Hunger' is the 2nd largest needstate with sales of over £250m
  
• Multifacings of the best sellers (eg Mars, Snickers, Twix) will deliver more sales than 1 facing of a slower seller

I didn't know any of that, Mr T. Well, possibly the last one.

To be honest, I never realised how knowledgable Mr T was when it comes to this sort of thing. You've got to admire the way he has all these figures at his bejwelled fingertips.

The Grocer's Guide To Confectionery contains what is without doubt the clunkiest, clumsiest, most desperate, most awkward linking paragraph I have ever read in my life. Let me set the scene. Talking about Nestlé's advertising proposals for the coming year, journalist David Burrows then seeks a way to link that to the new Mikado product recently launched in the UK by Kraft. This is how he does it:

It's been another impressive year for KitKat with sales up over 30% to £94m. Buyers suggest Nestlé has "got its house in order" with the brand now, having improved the focus. The launch of KitKat Senses, fronted by the Girls Aloud babes, has also given the brand that Something Kinda Oooooh.

Britain's most popular girl brand was, of course, discovered on TV show "Popstars: The Rivals". And now, "their biscuit" could have a rival, of sorts, on the confectionery shelves with Kraft foods having just launched a "unique chocolate biscuit snack specifically designed for on-the-go customers".

Christ. I'm not claiming the rubbish I write on this bloody blog is any better, but, you know, I'm doing this for free. Fuck knows why.

The same article also contains sentence which, well, I wouldn't want to suggest it's a deliberate lie, so maybe it's better just to say it demonstrates a slightly absurd overconfidence in the accuracy of their figures:

Nestlé has promised £7m to its Aero brand and treble that for KitKat. In fact, shoppers are unlikely to have a break from advertising for the iconic brand with the series of "Perfect Break" ads set to be seen by 99.9% of the target audience 53 times in 2009.

How on earth can it be possible to make a statement with that degree of accuracy?

And then, within this very same article, there's a spectacularly inane comment from Craig Barker, sales director at Ferrero:

Boxed chocolate remains a strong category despite tough economic times. The amount of disposable income may diminish, but key gifting occasions such as birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's and Easter will continue, as will the propensity of the consumer to gift at these key times.

Brilliant. He's basically saying "there are still times when people will give chocolates to other people as presents and at these times when people will give chocolates to other people as presents, they will give chocolates as presents". Thanks for that, Craig.

Anyway, despite all this, and even only looking at the confectionery guide, I like learning all the specialist phrases used in industries like this. The "hunger" "needstate". "Multi-facings". "Impulse sub-section". "Pouch format". "Large-block"

Possibly The Grocer doesn't really qualify for this blog. It's a trade magazine, not a trade association, and their website doesn't offer much more than the print version so it's not like I'm concentrating on that either. But, so what? It's my blog. I can write what I want.

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF RETAIL NEWSAGENTS

www.nfrnonline.com

The National Federation of Retail Newsagents. Aren't all newsagents retail newsagents? What other sort of newsagents are there? Do you get wholesaler newsagents? I guess you must do. I've never really considered that before, but the newsagents must get their papers and magazines from somewhere, I suppose. OK, wholesaler newsagents can fuck right off. This federation is for retail newsagents only.



Simple, almost boring, website design. I'm a little bit surprised they didn't go with a sort of newspapery look, but maybe that would have looked rubbish, so actually, well done, NFRN. As agents of news, it's not too surprising that they have a news section on the front page. The top story there, with the catchy headline CADBURY AIMS TO HIT THE MARK WITH ON PACK PROMOTION had, at the time of writing, "been read 2 times", although it was only posted today. The second story, about an uplift in sales of roll your own (RYO) tobacco in Wales has been read an impressive 21 times in three days (though possibly two or three of those were me).

The NFRN has ten key objectives:

To assist, practically support and encourage members in running financially successful businesses.
To provide value to members through relevant advice, support, benefits and legal assistance.
To provide pastoral care to members
To represent members interests and promote positive legislation and trading conditions.
To provide training and development to both members and staff to meet the changing needs off the marketplace.
To provide leadership through the effective involvement and communication with members.
To grow and develop Federation membership.
To maintain a structure relevant to the needs of members in a changing marketplace.
To maximise the external profile of the Federation to the benefit of the organisation and its members.
To maintain a sound financial base to meet the Federations' objectives.

Provide pastoral care? OK. Also, does it make sense that one of the ten key objectives is to maintain a sound financial base to meet the ten key objectives? Doesn't that mean that really they've only got nine key objectives. Come on, NFRN, get one more key objective! They could borrow one from the British Sandwich Association. "To provide a source of support and information for members". There you go.

Objectives are one thing, but the NFRN also offers practical advice to its members, such as information on getting the basics of your shop right. The checklist doesn't seem all that helpful though:

Your key categories
Assessing your shop
Understanding your area
Stocking the right lines
Merchandising to maximise sales
Getting the right shop layout
Have you got the right equipment
Training for you and your staff
Operating systems
Working with suppliers

There's no real information there. "Stocking the right lines", well obviously that's important but how do I know what the right lines are? "Have you got the right equipment?" I don't know! I don't know what equipment you need! A till, obviously. An Oyster top-up machine. One of those Paypoint things. Some fridges, one of those freezers for icecreams. What other equipment is there? One of those machines outside which sell gobstoppers and little toys in plastic balls. Oh, a lottery machine. Anything else? I think that's everything.

Much of the content is restricted to members only, which is a shame, so I can't see what they have to say about fixtures and fittings, shop design or the increasing importance of chilled and frozen foods. Is it really true that 31% of the population keep a stock of lager at home? They say "only 31%", that looks a bit high to me, but what do I know? Blimey, it's £4.50 A WEEK to join the NFRN! Plus VAT! The NFRN magazine better be good.

The comedian, writer, musician and philanthropist Tony Hawks presented the awards at the fifth annual NFRN awards in October. Ian Scott sounds like a deserving winner of the News Deliverer of the Year Award after rescuing two pensioners from a burning house. Congratulations, Ian Scott! I wonder how they pick the winners in other years though. Do they just hope that at some point during the year, a paperboy somewhere in the country will save someone from something.

I bet Ian Scott started that fire just to secure the NFRN News Deliverer of the Year Award. I know your game, Ian Scott, you can't fool me.