MercenaryD

I was out and about yesterday evening, and I had one of those appithiny moments. I sat in a small Dinner looking out at the street when it caught my attention that sitting in front of both the gas station and the local grocery store across the street were vending machines.

Why? Normally you see them sitting there, but do you pay much attention to them? You would think that food, snack, and drink vending machines would be put in places where there were no other food and drink available. An office break area, a rest stop, etc. I hear that since I was in school there has been a wave of these machines put in various places on school campuses.

But millions of vending machines are sitting in places where you can get real foods and drinks, or even the same thing as in the machine for a fraction of the cost. So what do you do? Pay a $1.00 or 2 for each item out of the machines or go to the store or dinner?

I got thinking about this as I sat starring out the window, talking to my Dad about food and making a reasonable profet on its sale, because it was just earlier this month that I saw and commented on a proposed challange at <a href=”http://www.carbonrally.com/users/6442/referral” target=”new”>Carbonrally</a> called <a href=”http://www.carbonrally.com/suggestions/2427″ target=”new”>Vending Machine No No</a>. suggested by GreenGirl4909.

We complain about the amount of fuel needed to bring say tomatoes from California to New York, as well as the processing factor. What you buy in the store could be up to 2 weeks old. And if you buy it as say sause it could be months. Now that food has travled thousands of miles from the farmers fields to market, to a processer, to a distributer, to warehouse, to the supermarket, and finally to your kitchen.

With vending machines it adds up to 2 more stops to the chain. instead of the supermarket (or in this case it does end at one, but…) the food goes from the warehouse to another set of distributers who take it to the various machines around the country side. Adding as much as another couple hundred miles on. One of the reasons they have to charge so much is to pay for all the middle men.

So even with the latest increases on fuel and food, its still cheaper to buy from the store. Because there is less middle men and less processing of the foods. Prices have a tendency to change some with areas being served by these machines, but I always found them to be expensive no matter where I went.

example: A couple of years ago I drove to Washington D.C. and back in less than 24hours, On the way out and back I ate one meal on the road each way. I can buy a 12oz can of soda (any brand) for $1.25 to $1.75 from a machine or you can go inside and buy a six-pack for $3.49 or less. Thats $0.58 each! The last time I looked at a 2oz. bag of chips in a machine was at a rest stop on Rt. 17 out side of Binghamton, New York. There it was $1.50 for a small single serving bag. I went into the store and bought a 2lb box of locally produced chips for $3.49. or $0.11 an oz. thats $0.22 for the same amount that was in that single serving bag! In the machine a basic sandwich cost $2.00. I had the store’s deli make me a sub for $4.00, that made for 2 meals and was.about 5 times the amount of consumable food.Thats right, I was able to go back and buy another and a loaf of bread and I made 5 sandwiches that equaled what was in the machine and I still had lettuce and bread left over, not to mention that I had bigger sandwiches because I used the tomatoes, olives, peppers, etc. that was on the sub and not on the machine bought one.

Total cost: $4.75 from vending machines per meal, and more in some areas. Food for the trip plus extra sodas and snacks cost $7.50 for soda, $5.00 for snack packs, $4.00 for sandwiches. Total cost $16.50

Total cost: $2.80 from the store per meal. Food for the trip total $3.49 six-pack of coke, 3.49 2lbs. potato chips, $4.00 for sub. Total cost $10.98.

The point of that example was to show how, for a little more upfront cost, I got enough food for 2 meals and 4 snacks while on the road for less money, and ate better and healthier.

So get rid of the vending machines, and save money, save fuel, save electricity, and save your health!

Tags: business, clean up, environment, save

This entry was posted by MercenaryD on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.