Vended coffee sales up as recession bites

13 August 2009

Across the country workers are giving up expensive take-out hot drinks from chains like Stabucks and Costa, and, according to LTT, choosing instead to stay in the workplace and purchase much cheaper drinks from vending machines.

LTT Vending, an independently owned vending company, has reported a massive 55 percent increase in vending sales of premium speciality drinks – frothy cappuccino, milky lattes, cafe Americano, extra creamy hot chocolate and fresh leaf teas. This sudden increase in continental drinks vending shows, it says, that office staff, college students, call centre workers, health and leisure facility customers, and many more are choosing to stay in for their delicious drink at break-time, rather than going round the corner to a local café..

The swing towards in-house premium drinks consumption, no doubt fuelled by people’s recession-inspired thrift, and because of recent improvements in vending equipment technology, and attention to quality ingredients, both of which are essential to producing a cup of coffee or tea which can rival high street coffee shop chains. Today’s equipment now offers coffee beans ground to order, leaf teas, HVO fat free skimmed milk – indeed, everything the café provides, except the costly staff. Moreover, integrated leasing arrangements mean that companies wanting to install quality vending do not have to commit scarce capital.

LTT Vending National Sales Director, Robin Turver, comments, "We manage over 40 million vending transactions across 3,500 locations every year in this country, so our data is a very accurate barometer of people’s consumption habits. It is evident to us that the availability of quality vended drinks, along with economic pressure both on work rates and on the individual’s pocket, have combined to drive up quality drinks consumption on the premises. In many cases, workforces have been reduced, meaning that pressure on people’s time has increased. Some of our customers have even remarked that the whole atmosphere of pulling together and camaraderie in difficult times, has increased as people socialise more together in the building."