Vending machines, which came on the scene in the 1920s to sell candy bars and tobacco products, now dispense everything from freshly brewed coffee to just-cookedand brownedfrench fries.


The technology already exists to make vending machines accept credit cards and perform self-diagnostic tests, although such units arent in use in very many places. Still, the machines are putting out much more satisfactory products, which gives Spokanes roughly 15 vending-machine companies new ways to compete.


There is no comparison, when compared to the foods produced by vending machines just five years ago, says Wes Lindsay, vice president of 68-year-old Alliance Vending Corp., of Spokane. Before, the food tasted like cardboard. Now, it actually tastes like food.


One vending machine company here, A-1 Vending Services Inc., is introducing a new generation of machinesones that prepare and dispense crispy french fries and others that heat and brown entrees. Its also looking at coffee units that not only brew coffee, but grind the beans moments earlier.


Another Spokane company, All-Snack Vending, is trying to establish its own niche by placing ice cream and frozen food machines in motel lobbies.


Bob Nechanicky, president of Alliance Vending, one of the oldest vending-machine businesses in the Spokane area, estimates that between 6,000 and 7,000 vending machines currently dot the Spokane-Coeur dAlene market, but the number of new machines is growing at a fairly slow clipabout 1.5 percent a year. That compares with a growth rate of about 5 percent just a couple of years ago, Nechanicky says. He says there is no regulatory limit on the number of machines that can be placed here.


The slowdown partly can be attributed to a proliferation of gas station-convenience stores, which take snack sales away from vending machines, and to a slowdown in the number of large employers moving into the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area, Nechanicky says. He explains that most vending machines are installed in buildings where a large number of workers can support them.


A couple of years ago, the Post Falls area and the Liberty Lake area were really growing, Nechanicky says. There were manufacturing companies, software companies, telemarketers, and those types of businesses coming into the area. Now, there arent as many companies that employ a large number of people like those coming in.


Most vending companies buy vending machines, compete to place those machines at certain locations, then pay a commission of the sales that a machine generates to the owner of the premises. Mark Ashley, who owns All-Snack Vending, with his wife, Linda, says that the standard commission within the industry here is 10 percent of a machines gross sales.


Undaunted by the industrys slow growth, A-1 Vending President Patti Miller says her company has been placing a new type of vending machine in some Spokane hospitals and Spokane-area high schoolsboth of which serve a large number of people. The machine, called the Ore-Ida French Fry Vendor, touts a big Ore-Ida logo across the front, and contains a refrigeration unit to keep the raw potatoes cold, a scale to weigh them out, and an oven to cook them. It dispenses 3.5 ounces of french fries for $1. Food companies like Ore-Ida are beginning to package products specifically for vending machines.


A-1 Vending already has installed the french-fry machines at Deaconess and Sacred Heart medical centers, Medical Lake High School, and Mount Spokane High School. Miller says that internal computers allow A-1 Vending to program when the machines can dispense fries. The company programs the machines at high schools so students cant buy french fries during the lunch hour, and the machines thus dont interfere with the schools hot lunch programs.


Meanwhile, A-1 Vending also has exclusive rights to market throughout Eastern Washington a new type of vending machine called Hot Choice machines, which contain frozen food items and an oven that heats them.


Miller says that A-1 Vending began placing those high-tech machines, for which it pays about $13,500 apiece, including the cost of regional exclusivity, at business locations here in April and so far has installed fourone at Deaconess, one at Sacred Heart, and two at manufacturing facilities located at the Spokane Business & Industrial Park.


The company also is working to place two more Hot Choice machines here, Miller says.


The locations A-1 Vending has targeted with those machines have graveyard-shift workers.


That way, an employer is able to offer a hot meal to those workers, Miller says. It also is helpful for workers who have short lunch hours and who dont have food available nearby.


The vending machines store food inside a freezer set at between 0 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Each food item is precooked, frozen, and packaged in a cardboard serving tray thats encircled by a cardboard sleeve.


When a person deposits his or her money into the machine and selects a food item, the packaged item drops from the storage unit and a mechanical arm pushes the cardboard tray from its cardboard sleeve and into an oven. The oven uses hot-air impingement, which browns and crisps the outside of the food, as well as microwave energy, which heats the item thoroughly in a matter of minutes.


An internal computer is programmed with the appropriate cooking times for each item and also monitors the temperature of the freezer and diagnoses problems with the machine.


Once the item is done cooking, the mechanical arm grabs the tray, pulls it from the oven, and puts it back into the cardboard sleeve. The repackaged item then is dropped into a food delivery chute for the customer.


Miller says the vending machine can hold up to five of the 15 different food items available, which include french fries, hamburgers, personal-sized pizzas, grilled-cheese sandwiches, chicken strips, and breakfast sandwiches. The items cost customers between $1 and $2 apiece.


Miller recently saw a demonstration of another new machine, which sells coffee and pastries, and she currently is looking for the perfect spot to place one. That machine, which contains its own coffee grinder and specialized brewing system, would allow a customer to select a type of gourmet coffee bean, a flavoring, and the type of coffee beverage he or she preferred, as well as a pastry.


A market in motels


Ashley, co-owner and the only employee at All-Snack Vending, says his 10-year-old company has found the perfect spot to place ice cream and frozen food vending machinesmotel lobbies here.


Frozen food and ice cream machines are becoming the rage of the age so to speak, Ashley claims.


All-Snack Vendings machines offer frozen entrees, such as Red Baron personal-sized pizzas, Hot Pockets, and chimichangas. Unlike with the Hot Choice vending machine, though, the entrees must be heated in a separate microwave.


Although other vending companies are placing frozen food machines in industrial areas and hospitals, Ashley claims that motels are the perfect spot for them because many motels already have microwaves available to their guests.


Most motels anymore have continental breakfasts and provide microwaves so that guests can heat up their breakfast buns, Ashley says. Now, their guests also can grab lunch or dinner at the motel by heating a frozen entre in the microwave the motel provides, he explains.


Ashley says that finding the right location for a certain type of machine is the key to the vending machine business.


Convenience also is a big factorfor both vending machine owners and the operators of the machines.


Within the next five years or so, A-1 Vendings Miller says she wouldnt be surprised to see vending machine companies here gathering data about their machines remotely, rather than having to travel to each machine location.


Payroll is one of our largest expenses, says Miller of her six-employee operation here. So, if we were able to remotely evaluate which machines needed to be refilled, we could shorten the amount of time it takes to restock the machines and reduce labor costs.


All-Snack Vendings Ashley says he expects vending machines in Spokane to begin accepting credit cards and debit cards in the near future.


The electronics within the vending machines already are capable of doing such things. I just dont know of any machines that actually do that yet, Ashley says. To accomplish the acceptance of credit or debit cards, machines would have to be connected to a dedicated phone line, he says.


I dont know of too many places that would run a dedicated line just to a vending machine, says Ashley, adding, But eventually it will come to that.