Holland, January 2007

This January 17, 18, and 19th found Selecta Netherlands participating once again in the Hertogenbosch international vending trade show. Our presence at the yearly exhibition is the perfect opportunity for us to present the latest and greatest in vending machines and services, plus an excellent reason for busy facility managers to see one another and catch up.

One exciting unveiling at the show was all the new features to be found on our Composa point-of-sale housing. Composa vending machine furniture has really evolved to be even more user-friendly than ever and able to accommodate our clients growing vending needs. It can now feature integrated coffee machine, either singly, or in conjunction with other machines making it possible to house Table Top warm drink machines alongside other vending machines. It’s even possible to combine a fresh food solution, with integrated microwave, in special Composa furniture.

We also showed new public vending machines in special housing made to attract the attention of on the move consumers. Recognising the rising rate of on-the-go snack consumption, we will be addressing the demand more and more by introducing more vending machines in public areas, easily accessible, across the Netherlands. Some of these possibilities were on display at Hertogenbosch.

At the Selecta stand, we also had the opportunity to talk about Shell Café, a new collaboration between Shell Service Stations and Selecta. In this Europe-wide concept we were entrusted to choose special coffee blends for each country, matching them to regional tastes - six coffee blends in all were specially developed for the markets Shell and Selecta partner in. Part of caring for our consumers is putting forethought into decisions like these to make sure we have enough choice to please everybody. Well, 99.9% of people anyway! The successful Shell Café launch is the perfect blend of all the elements - great coffee, our best coffee vending equipment and, of course, Shell and Selecta working so well together.

Last but in no way least, we premiered the new ‘St Tropez’ glass door cold drink machine. Very different from our existing cold drink machines, what you see is literally what you get. With its transparent door (similar to the snack machines), and room to accommodate up to 40 choices (including PET bottles, glass bottles, tins, tetra packs and various sizes from small tins, like Red Bull, to large 1 litre bottles), this consumer-focused drinks vending machine was an understandable hit at the trade show. The St Tropez vending machine will be introduced gradually across a number of our markets in the very near future.

As you can imagine, we had a great time at Hertogenbosch. The exhibition attracted 10.000 visitors and we met lots of existing customers and had the opportunity to welcome new ones as well, able to answer their questions in person. We take part in this fair every year, as we do others in other countries. The next vending show will be at AVEX in the UK in April 2007. Catch up with us there.

For more information on the Hertogenbosch fair, contact Selecta Netherlands. To know more about the forthcoming Avex fair in UK, contact Selecta UK.