Bet the guys at the vending machine companies just about spat out their coffee, or Coke, or Dasani water, or whatever it is they drink in the morning, when they read the front page yesterday.
Bet they banged their heads against the machines in frustration, until the Doritos trembled in fear and the coin returns poured out a river of loonies.
"Bottled water is the newest eco-foe," read the headline. The story detailed how some school boards are pondering a ban on bottled water. Too many plastic containers not being recycled. Too much junk.
That's ironic, in that concern over junk -- the kind that goes in your body, not in the dump -- is the reason vending machines stock so much bottled water in the first place. Better that the kids buy water than Diabetes-In-A-Can, the soft drinks to which they have become addicted, the argument goes.
So now the vendors are caught between the people who want to sell water because it's better than pop, and those who want it banned because it's bad for the environment. Must make the companies yearn for the good old days when vending machines were just vending machines, not social barometers or political battlegrounds.
As it is, those who have tried to use food dispensers as tools of social engineering are struggling to make the dollars and cents make sense. An example is the Panorama Recreation Centre, which shifted to a healthier menu this year, adding selections such as carrots, milk, fruit bars and water. You can still find the traditional array of chocolate bars and deep-fried potato chips, says administrator Doug Henderson, but the majority of offerings are now more in keeping with Panorama's health-oriented programming.
The good news is that people are still using the vending machines: Gross sales have dipped, but only by two or three per cent. The bad news: The margins on the healthier choices are a lot lower. The rec centre's profits have dropped 30 or 40 per cent. Suppliers are still trying to find products that are popular, meet healthy-choice guidelines, have the right price point and come in a package that fits in the dispenser.
And the offerings at Panorama aren't as limited as those found in schools, where, as of September, the sale of junk food will be flat-out banned -- no chocolate bars, no pop, no deep-fried salted fat.
In fact, most local schools have made the change already -- at the cost of the snack-sales revenue that pays for extra-curricular activities. "It's ironic," says Ron Warder, the Sooke district's assistant superintendent. "A lot of their athletic programs are paid for by selling junk food."
We're talking about a lot of money.
Two years ago, West Shore's Belmont Secondary made a $1,500-a-month profit from its vending machines. After making the change, the figure fell to $600. At Oak Bay High, the figure fell from $18,000 a year to less than $12,000. Schools in the Greater Victoria district saw sales drop by 35 to 50 per cent, says superintendent John Gaiptman.
Happily, the health benefits were immediate: By racing across to the mall for a noon-hour sugar fix, students were able to raise their heart rates for a good 20 seconds.
This, critics point out, is where the junk-food ban falls down (and has a hard time getting back up without losing its breath). There's nothing to stop kids from waddling across the street and buying the blacklisted snacks from the corner store, the only difference being that the schools no longer derive the benefit from the sales.
But then, if all we're worried about is the money, then schools should be selling cigarettes, lemon gin and crack cocaine, too. No, dumping the deep-fried is the right thing to do. "We shouldn't be offering students anything that isn't good for them," says Gaiptman.
Heaven knows something must be done to get the chunky junkies off the sugar. We have raised a generation of children as inactive and portly as, well, their parents. In the words of comedian Ron James: "It's not 9/11 that's killing the Americans. It's the 7-Eleven."
The problem is, you can lead a horse to water, but it still wants to drink Mountain Dew. And if it does drink water, what do you do with the empty water bottle?
Source : Times Colonist |