Frozen Food Vendors Promise
New Field for eM Industry
,
CHICAGO-The barely touched field of
selling and merchandising frozen foods
through coin-operated vendi'ng machines is
coming in for increasing attention, Proc-
essors of frozen foods throughout the
country are launching or about to launch
extensive advertising campaigns in connec·
tion with stepped-up production. A number
of coin machine manufacturers are reported
" about ready to reveal newly developed reo
frigerated machines for vending frozen
fruits, vegetables and meats. And public
acceptance of frozen products is by now a
, well-established fact.
A recent survey conducted in New York
City shows that the average housewife is
very much in favor of self-service sale of
frozen foods, whatever kind it may be.
Spokesmen for frozen products and spokes- /
· men for the coin machine industry take
the results of this survey as proof of their
contention that frozen food automatic
vendors will soon be important merchandis-
ing factors.
Millions of dollars worth of beverages,
ice cream, candy, peanuts and gum have
been sold through automatic vendors, but
COIN
these sale's are a small percentage of the
MACHINI volume of the food business expected when
UY'IW super-markets, chain stores, and even the
corner grocery take advantage of automatic
vendors which will sell many types of food
by the insertion of a coin and the touch of
a button.
16
FOIl
MAY
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"LOOK fOR THE EAGLE
THE , SYMBOL OF
QUALITY"
A11H1i1'1
Frozen foods by now are so familiar to
the consumer that the entry of the auto-
matic vendor into the field is a perfectly
natural step in this new trem:! of modern
merchandising. Commercial packing of
frozen foods originated in 1908 when
berries in bulk were preserved by cold
packing. The first frozen food packages
were introduced in 1930 in a patented
quick freezing apparatus developed by
Clarence Birdseye. Since then more and
more frozen food's have reached the market.
During the war, production in retail
packages increased at a great rate. Sev-
enty-fiye million pounds of frozen vegetables
went to the armed forces in 1944 alone, and
with the elimination of frozen foods from
rationing sales to the general public showed
a marked upswing.
At the present time the commercial
frozen foods business is running into a
retail sales volume of over 200 million
dollars a year. , This is considered small in
comparison with the 17 billion dollars a
year done in perishable food sales, but a
great portion of these perishables are being
converted into quick frozen foods. Accord-
ing to Clarence Birdseye, 75 per cent of
all foods are perishable, and the quick
freezing process preserves many in their
best natural state.
A~nouncements of greater production
'than ever before are being made by proc-
essors of frozen foods all over the country.
Snow Crop Marketers, Inc., announces that
this fall it will introduce a complete line
of frozen foods, to be accompanied by a
$300,000 national advertiSIng campaign.
Stokely-Van Camp Co., big fruit and vege-
table canner, reveals its plans to expand
production of frozen foods with construc·
tion of a large new plant at Oxnard, Cali-,
fornia. Polar Frosted Foods Company 0
Seattle, Western Frozen Foods of Watson-
ville, Calif., and PictSweet Frozen Foods
of Seattle are still others of the industry
with big expansion plans.
The frozen foods processing industry is
composed of from 450 to 500 processors of
fruits, vegetables, seafoods, meats and
poultry, and it is safe to say that practically
all of them are boosting their output.
What this means to the vending machine
industry is obvious. •
Biggest immediate field for ,automatic
frozen food vendors undoubtedly will be
in grocery stores where housewives have
learned to purchase such products. Many
of the large grocery chains already are
working on plans to adojJt automatic vend-
ing or permit operators to take over the
concession. However, plans also are Jbeing
made to install automatic food vendors in
the face of store fronts so that many types
of frozen food products can be sold after
store hours. In addition, there is the still
untapped outlet for such products in apart-
ment houses and apartment hotels.
An important part of this new trend in
merchandising is the development of
change-making devices. Changers now being
adapted to many types of beverage, candy
and oigarette vendors already on the mar-
ket are entirely practicable for frozen food
vendors. Some machines remit change in
nickels and pennies, others still in develop-
ment will vend an item and return change
according to the number of purchases
made.
Officials of the Refrigeration ,Equipment
Manufacturers' Association recently pointed
out that foods requiring refrigeration to
prevent spoilage can be vended through
machines as easily as ice cream and bev-
erages, two items which have been widely
distributed in refrigerated coin machines.
Developments in mechanical refrigeration
have opened a new market for the coin
machine operators, these officials declare,
and because of the uniformity of packag-
ing and keeping qualities, frozen foods are
readily adaptable for sale through coin-
operated vending machines.
Frozen fruits, vegetables and meats are
expected to be the first products offered to
the housewife through automatic vending
machines. Meanwhile other mechanically
refrigerated machines are being planned
for the sl\,le of ,deli'catessen items such as
cold meats, potato salad, prepared salad,
cheese, bakery specialties and milk.
The modern shopper has learned the ad·
vantages of self-service and has come to
demand a wider variety of frozen foods.
It remains only for the advent of practical
mechanically refrjgerated vending machines
to open up this vast potential business for
coin machine operators.
Frozen Food Vendors
NEW YORK-Industry is humming with
talk about coin-operated food dispensers.
To date no definite announcements have
been made, but it is understood that Frez-
O-Mat and Refrigerator Corp. of America
are both working on the idea. In Wash-
ington a patent has been issued for an
eight-column dispenser that is said to
have possibilities for adaptation to coin-
operation. The patent has been assigned
to R. H. Bishop Co. of Champaign, Ill.
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