Vending machines pilot study: your questions answered

Children and young people, like adults, need to drink in order to maintain their water balance – we should all drink 6-8 glasses of fluid a day. Most schools do provide access to water on the school premises but there may be reasons why students don’t like the arrangements. For example, water fountains are sometimes in the toilets or outside in the school playground. Vending machines are a convenient way to provide drinks (and other snacks) for students. This is particularly helpful when the main counter service is closed or very busy, and also gives students wider choice.

It shows that young people will choose to buy healthier drinks, such as milk, water and fruit juice, from vending machines, even when they are confronted with a choice between options from their existing vending machines and the healthier drinks.

Pupils purchased about 70,000 healthier drinks during the 24 weeks of the study – averaging about 580 each school day. The most popular items were pure juices, flavoured milk/milk shakes, semi-skimmed milk and mineral water. If extended to, say, 1 in 5 secondary schools in England and Wales, then young people would reap the benefit of an additional 14 million bottles and cartons of milk, milkshakes and pure juices and water every year.

The project was set up so that everyone with an interest had an input. This included teachers, students and caterers. The project engaged the students through their school councils, if no school council existed then a School Nutrition Action Group was set up. The students discussed the plans with their fellow students, held assemblies to promote the project, discussed what drinks should be sold and the price.

This project only looked at drinks. However, the project identified a lot of information that is being used by the Department of Health’s Food in Schools vending project, which is looking at ‘fresh food’ snack vending.

Whether or not to have vending machines on school premises is a decision that is made by the head teacher and school's governors. The Agency believes that vending machines allow students choice but they should contain products that help promote the messages taught in the curriculum. These messages are that we should eat a balanced diet based on starchy foods with plenty of fruit and veg, in which meat, fish, meat products, milk and dairy products are eaten in moderation and where foods high in fat and food and drink high in sugar are eaten sparingly. This is why the drinks vending machine project only sold milk, water and fruit juice.

Healthier drinks vending enables young people to make positive and healthier choices when it comes to maintaining their levels of fluid intake. Vending machines are a convenient option that schools use to provide drinks and snacks for children throughout the school day. Healthier drinks vending can also help the promotion of healthier eating messages taught in the curriculum.

For the purpose of this study, healthier drinks were defined as those drinks that contribute positively towards a balanced diet (i.e. should not be too high in fat or sugar), such as fruit juices, milk and water. These were readily available and could be sold within the price range identified by the students in each of the schools. The starting point for discussions in each school was that the vending machine could sell water, juice and milk/milk products. It was also agreed that juices should be pure juice rather than ‘juice drinks’, all machines should offer fresh ‘semi-skimmed milk’, and flavoured milks and milkshakes should contain less than 10% added sugar.

It is true that when you juice fruit the natural sugars that are in the fruit are released into the drink and too much sugar can lead to tooth decay. But one glass of fruit juice can contribute one of the five portions of fruit and veg that we should eat each day. So fruit juice can be a healthier option if it's not drunk too often.

Vending machines can have a role as part of the provision of snacks and drinks during the school day that is consistent with the ethos of the school and the aims and targets of the caterers. In this project, the catering staff were involved from the beginning and the vending machines were most successful when the caterers saw the project as an extension of their counter service. The results show that while there is some additional work for the catering staff who managed the filling of the machines, this was not too great provided that the machines were not far from the school canteen. Where additional catering staff time was needed, this could be paid for by the profits from the machine.

A toolkit is being developed for schools that wish to set up similar vending schemes to that of this project. This should be published later this year.