Category: Break Room Snacks

The demand for fresh, natural and organic products is on the rise. With the continued interest in healthy eating, Atlanta vending providers and employers have an opportunity to educate consumers about the newest choices in the better-for-you category. Lucille Beseler, president of Family Nutrition Center of S. Florida shared “that people are interested in nutrition and listening to the newest product options, which includes what is available in the micro market.”

Beseler’s statement is supported by an increased demand for healthy snacks. Automatic Merchandiser’s annual industry report shows the increase in demand as it found that fresh food and better-for-you product sales compromised a larger percentage of overall micro-market sales than before.

Savory snacks are no longer the only type of snack that might be changed to be considered better-for-you. Sweets, especially dark chocolate, are being made with healthier ingredients. A recent report by Convenience Store Designs covered the changes in chocolate sales and determined that better-for-you qualities like the benefits of dark chocolate or the addition of functional ingredients played an important role in increasing sales. 

But better-for-you chocolate isn’t the only sweet treat that Atlanta consumers are looking for in their break room. The sought-after bold and hot flavors currently found in snacks have made their way to the candy aisle. In fact, sales of non-chocolate spicy and hot candy products are increasing at rate of 25% compared to non-chocolate candy.

While the health benefits of snacks, fresh food and beverages are very important to Atlanta consumers, they also want to learn about how eating or drinking a specific product will feel and sound. For instance, is it crunchy, crispy or silky? Are there multiple textures within a single product? Products that share information about textures have a higher chance of being purchased. Combine bold and spicy flavors with touch and sound, and you’ll have an experience consumers are looking for.

Drawing your Atlanta employees into the micro-market with a combination of healthy, bold and spicy, and textually-intriguing snacks can also result in multiple benefits for both you and your employees. A welcoming space where colleagues can spontaneously gather creates opportunities for creativity. Healthy employees who are also satiated and hydrated are likely to be more productive. And as snacks continue to replace meals during the day, they will continue to be a strong revenue driver.

Whether it’s time to update your current micro-market menu or create a new one from scratch, PB&J Vending would like to help. We will help customize the perfect combination of refreshment options from healthy snacks, beverages and fresh food to office coffee service. For more information, please contact PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363. 

Consumer demand for convenient and healthy snacks such as cereal bars, energy bars and other snack bars is growing. According to market research firm Mordor Intelligence, the snack bar market value is expected to increase by 22 percent between 2017 and 2023. That translates to a lot of snack bars.

The researchers believe that the changing lifestyle of Atlanta employees will continue to play an important role in the expected increase. Consuming three large meals per day is gradually being replaced with smaller meals or larger, healthy snacks that are enjoyed more frequently throughout the day. Manufacturers have responded to this shift by developing a snack bar for every occasion from protein-filled energy bars to fruit bars that will satisfy a sweet tooth. 

But it’s not just any type of snack bar or meal-like snack that will do. Atlanta employees are looking for healthy products with “clean” ingredients, reduced sugar, higher amounts of protein and functional ingredients. Reduced amounts of sugar usually mean fewer calories, protein stabilizes blood sugar levels and slows digestion, and functional ingredients serve more than one purpose. 

Other convenient and healthy snacks that have higher levels of protein and lower amounts of sugar and can be found in the break room include beef jerky, trail mix, Greek yogurt, cheese, nuts, roasted chickpeas, and hummus and veggies.

Even though the previously listed snacks are usually higher in protein, lower in sugar and often categorized as healthy, it is important to remember to pay attention to the serving size and the information on the nutrition label. Many of these types of snacks can be high in added sugar or calories. To help Atlanta employees make sure that they don’t get too much, they should always ask, “Is the package that the snack bar or yogurt or nuts came in considered a portion or a serving size?” 

You might be thinking that they are the same thing, but no, they aren’t. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, “A portion is how much food you choose to eat at one time, whether in a restaurant, from a package, or at home. A serving, or serving size, is the amount of food listed on a product’s Nutrition Facts, or food label…Depending on how much you choose to eat, your portion size may or may not match the serving size.” 

Another way to help your Atlanta employees eat healthier is to offer healthy snacks and beverages in the break room vending machine or micro-market. The easier it is to find and purchase great-tasting, healthy options including snack bars, the more likely an individual is to go that route. There’s an extra bonus too. Satiated, hydrated and healthy employees who stay on-site to grab a bite to eat or drink are more productive and creative. Spontaneous conversations among coworkers always seem to happen when they are least expected.

For more information about any of our vending service options including office coffee service or to customize a menu for your specific location, contact PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363. 

Salty snacks are here to stay. Atlanta individuals will continue to find them at a variety of retail establishments, at home and at work. In fact, a recent report developed by Freedonia Focus Reports found that the demand for corn chips is expected to outgrow the demand for potato chips. But it’s not just the demand for traditional salty snacks that is on the rise. Individuals want to enjoy new salty product offerings that are healthier.

Saltiness like sweetness is one of those tastes that can cause Atlanta employees to eat too much of it. The human body needs salt, but it is important to be careful how much salt one eats. Understanding how much salt is the right amount of salt for one’s body is challenging. It’s sort of like “Too little, too much, and just right.”

Let’s take a look at why the “just right” spot is so important.

Salt consists of sodium and chloride, and sodium and chloride play a crucial role in maintaining human health. Since the human body cannot produce sodium and chloride, an outside source is needed. That source is salt. A familiar example of using and replacing sodium and chloride in the human body is when Atlanta individuals excrete sodium and chloride by sweating. They then replenish the lost sodium and chloride by consuming salt.

The components of salt are very important.

• Sodium is essential for nerve and muscle function, is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body and helps to control blood pressure and volume.
• Chloride, an electrolyte, regulates fluids, transmits nerve impulses, maintains the acid-base (pH) balance in the body, and is a crucial component in the production of stomach acid (HCl).

But too much salt is unhealthy.

• People who consume too much sodium may develop hypertension or high blood pressure, a condition that can lead to serious illnesses such as heart disease, kidney disease and stroke.
• When too much chloride is in the body, the high levels of acid in the blood can cause a condition called hyperchloremia to occur.

Atlanta employees should take the time to figure out what their “just right” amount of salt is. Then, when the mood strikes for something salty, try one these better-for-you, salty snacks.

• multigrain or whole-grain tortilla chips
• whole grain pretzels, plain or in a variety of flavors
• edamame with sea salt
• baked sweet potato or regular potato chips
• veggie chips
• baked lentil or brown rice chips
• popcorn
• black olives

As a Atlanta employer, remember to include a variety of healthy, salty snacks for your employees in the break room vending machines or micro-market. It will provide an on-site refreshment option and help your employees stay healthy and productive. And don’t forget to include cold beverages such as bottled water to balance the salt.

For more information about customizing the perfect combination of snacks, beverages and fresh food in your break room, call PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363.

Finding the right balance between healthy and not-so-healthy foods can be challenging especially if one’s current diet feels boring, but it doesn’t have to be. A variety of new food trends can be found throughout Atlanta that will satisfy a healthy craving or offer a bit of silliness and hopefully, bring things into balance.   

Healthy Food Trends

Turmeric Milk or Golden Milk: The primary ingredients in this beverage are cow’s or plant-based milk, turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger. Not only does this beverage contain antioxidants and powerful anti-inflammatory properties, but it has also been found to help form new connections in the brain and promote brain cell growth.

Gut-Friendly Foods: This group of foods includes sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kefir, and pickles, all of which have undergone the process of fermentation or pickling. A short explanation of fermentation is that yeast or bacteria is added to a particular food and then feeds on the natural sugars in that food. The result is a preserved product that contains gut-healthy probiotics and other helpful nutrients.  

Drinkable Soups: Easy to enjoy on-the-go or throughout the workday, drinkable soups are made with vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant-packed produce and are packaged in ready-to-drink containers. Similar in consistency to smoothies, drinkable soups offer a more filling, higher fiber, and lower sugar option that can replace a less healthy snack.

Healthy is super important, but we also need a little fun in our lives. Enjoying fun food trends (in moderation of course) is a great way to taste something new and have fun.

Fun Food Trends
Rolled Ice Cream: Part of what makes rolled ice cream so intriguing is its preparation method. Using a process that is similar to the one used to make a classic Yule log dessert, liquid ice cream is poured on a cold slate which freezes the ice cream. The frozen sheet of ice cream is then rolled by hand, sliced, and served with a variety of toppings. Yum!

Doughnuts with Customized-Fillings: ‘Boutique’ doughnut shops have been popping up across the U.S., and the options are endless. Unique ingredients include sweet and regular potato, pumpkin, and fruit jellies. Fillings and flavors such as custard, snickers bars, and banana malt and toppings like bacon, marshmallows, and cereal can also be found. There’s a flavor combination for everyone.

Instead of seeing your Atlanta employees always going off site to find something healthy or fun to eat, provide them with a reason to stay on site. Offer a balance of healthy and fun beverage, snack, and food options in your break room micro-market or vending machines. To create a customized menu for your organization, survey your employees about their preferences, but don’t forget to include coffee service options in your survey. Coffee, tea, and espresso-based beverages can also be fun and healthy.

Increase the odds that all of your Atlanta employees can find something in the break room with a custom break room menu designed by PB&J Vending. We can help you create a space that is inviting, fun, and relaxing all at the same time. For more information, call PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363.

With all of the cookies, cakes, pies, and sweet snacks that will likely be enjoyed during the next couple months, Atlanta employees shouldn’t be afraid to include a few better-for-you salty snacks to balance everything out. Salt can have a bit of a bad reputation, but the word or concept of salt shouldn’t cause anyone to be fearful.

Salt is a mineral made of sodium and chloride, and it plays an important role in maintaining human health. The right amount of salt helps balance fluid levels in the body as well as helping muscles and nerves function properly.

But, and it’s a big one, consuming too much salt can cause some very dangerous health conditions. And therein lies the challenge — understanding where the line is between too much and too little salt, and choosing healthy ways to get the correct amount of salt for your body.

In 2018, snacks have played a more complex role in our daily diet than they did just a few years ago. David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com, explained that “more consumers have moved away from the traditional three meals per day and shifted into a lifestyle involving increased snacking, or multiple smaller meals, throughout the day.”

A recent survey by Surveygoo supports that as 92 percent of the Millennials surveyed said they replaced a meal with a snack at least once a week. 50 percent did it four times a week and 26 percent, did it seven times per week.

New better-for-you salty snacks or mini meals are now made with alternative (non-potato) ingredients such as proteins, grains, vegetables, and superfoods, and include new taste, texture, and flavor combinations. It’s clear that a shift has occurred to include an expanded definition of the snack. Both types of snacks, the traditional and the “mini-meal” healthy snack, need to be available in the Atlanta break room.

Employees are looking for new ways to combat the afternoon munchies and to fill a nutritional need during the work day. If that snack is not available at work, they will go elsewhere to find the snack or mini-meal that they need. Offering the combination of new flavors, textures, and healthier ingredients is an interesting way to draw hungry people to the break room.

To offer a wide variety of options for your Atlanta employees, update your break room to include vending machines or a micro-market that offer a customized menu of snacks, beverages, and fresh food to meet your employees’ needs and preferences. Whether that means changing up your current offerings, adding coffee service, or updating your entire break room, PB&J Vending can help. For more information, contact PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363. We look forward to working with you.

Demand for great-tasting healthy snacks in Atlanta break rooms is on the rise. As consumers become more conscious or mindful of what they eat, employers have the opportunity to bring healthier snack options into their break rooms and educate their employees about healthy snacking. Malcolm McAlpine, business manager at Branded Snacks — Foodservice and Vending, Mondelez International recently explained that “consumers are becoming increasingly attuned to the nutritional value of the food they consume” and are changing a single-minded focus on low calories to “an emphasis on premium quality, traceable, trustworthy sourcing and simple, clean label ingredients.”

To ensure that potential healthy snacks meet these criteria, Atlanta employees are asking the following questions:

• What is this snack’s origin? Does that make some or all of its ingredients organic? non-GMO?
• Is the brand or manufacturer transparent about the product? What is the complete list of ingredients? What is the production process?
• Can this snack be personalized? Will it meet my individual dietary needs for snacks that are gluten free, paleo, keto, or dairy free?

The key to meeting a variety of dietary, transparency, and source or origin requirements is to offer a balance of snacking options including a variety of product types that meet a large number of different needs as well as provide scientifically accurate information for those snacks.This information will educate and support Atlanta employees in making healthy decisions and clarifying some of the confusing or mixed messages that are out there.

Encouraging Atlanta employees to try new healthy snacks that are available in the break room vending machine or micro-market often requires several different approaches. One approach is to educate employees about terminology. For example, how is organic different from non-gmo, or what are the different names for sugar that are used in an ingredient list? Education will enable each Atlanta employee to make decisions on their own that are appropriate for them.

Another approach is to provide employees with the opportunity to try new snacks or beverages that focus on a specific dietary need. Worrying about the taste of a new healthy snack, and if it is ‘worth it’ to spend the money, are hurdles that employees must overcome before buying something they have never tried. Offering that item as a monthly special with discounted pricing helps those employees who otherwise might not try an item feel better about buying it because they are spending less.

Do your Atlanta employees have a list of healthy snacks that they wish they could enjoy while at work? As their employer, you have the opportunity to provide that benefit and customize the break room to meet their needs. Vending machines and micro-markets can be designed to offer the right mix of healthy and traditional snacks and beverages. It’s a great first step to help employees stay healthy and be productive at work. To learn more about upgrading your break room, call PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363. We look forward to working with you.

Everyone, well almost everyone, loves to enjoy chocolate as one of their daily snacks. Whether it’s dark chocolate or milk chocolate, the key ingredient is cocoa. Without cocoa there are no chocolate snacks in Atlanta. Frank Mars, board member of Mars, Inc recently spoke at the Fourth World Cocoa Conference about his concern about the future of cocoa, and that should concern all chocolate lovers.

According to Frank Mars, the participants at the conference need “to think differently and work harder together; not only on better [cocoa] plant varieties and farming practices and models, but also on pest and disease control.” Mars further explained that the current progress is not enough to make cocoa sustainable unless more change is made.

Sustainable Cocoa

So what exactly is sustainable cocoa? According to the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa, sustainable cocoa is cocoa “produced according to economic, environmental, and social requirements, either through internationally recognized standards such as Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade, or through sourcing comparable to those standards, which have been verified by an “approved method.” Put simply, cocoa farmers need to be able to produce more cocoa seed on less land with fewer pesticides. The increased cocoa yields would allow farmers to plant crops for themselves in place of less efficient cocoa trees thereby improving their own livelihood and quality of life.

Atlanta Employees

Why should Atlanta employees be concerned about the cocoa in their chocolate snacks? Because the quality of cocoa used to make chocolate snacks is impacted by the growing, harvesting, fermenting & drying (processing), roasting & grinding, and pressing methods used to make cocoa. Growing, harvesting, and fermenting & drying (processing) are also stages that are directly impacted by sustainable farming practices.

This is important because according to recent research by the Mars Center for Cocoa Health Science, “harvesting and processing of the cocoa seed determines the final cocoa flavanol content,” and “the cocoa seed has a unique combination of flavanols that is found in no other food exactly as it is found in cocoa.” Flavanols are beneficial for Atlanta employees’ health. Not only do flavanols support heart health but they also positively impact cognitive function and circulation.

Healthy and mentally sharp employees are great for any Atlanta business. One way to ensure that employees have access to snacks with chocolate made from sustainable cocoa is to offer those snacks in the break room vending machine or micro-market. The snacks are healthier, as long as there isn’t too much sugar in them, and easier to find since they are onsite. Don’t forget to offer other healthy beverages such as bottled water or coffee and tea in the office break room to enjoy with a chocolate snack — hydration is also important.

For more information about updating your snack options or customizing a new break room, call PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363. We look forward to working with you.

Dark Chocolate has made it to the top of the superfood list. Whether it’s a snack or an ingredient in a beverage, dark chocolate has a lot to offer Atlanta employees. Before we dive into the benefits of dark chocolate, let’s define what dark chocolate is.

In its most basic form, dark chocolate is cocoa, fat, and sugar. The first ingredient should always be cocoa or chocolate liquor followed by any combination of cocoa powder, cocoa nibs, and cocoa butter. The other necessary ingredient is sugar, which is used to balance the bitter taste of the chocolate. But make sure that the sugar is listed toward the end of the ingredients’ list and always after the cocoa. Here’s a hint to remember — the higher the cocoa percentage, the lower the sugar content.

Question: When is dark chocolate a superfood?

Answer: When it contains high levels of cacao.

For dark chocolate to qualify as a superfood, it must contain a minimum of  70 percent cocoa. The high levels of cacao provide flavonoids, a powerful type of antioxidant. Dark chocolate is also rich in fiber and nutrients like healthy fats, iron, magnesium, copper, manganese, and a particular group of free-radical-fighting antioxidants known as flavanols (a type of flavonoid). At 70 percent cacao or higher, dark chocolate has been found to decrease stress levels and inflammation, and improves mood, memory, immunity, and cardiovascular health.

To find a high-quality dark chocolate snack, consider the following checklist:

• Cacao is listed first on the ingredient list.
• There is 70 percent or more of cacao.
• Sugar is listed below the cacao ingredients.
• No unnecessary ingredients are used such as trans fat, milk (except milk fat), or artificial flavorings.
• No alkalization or Dutching was used to make the dark chocolate as the processing method significantly decreases the amount of antioxidants in the chocolate.
• Consider fair-trade or organic dark chocolate to ensure that the chocolate is high-quality, pesticide-free, GMO-free, and was ethically sourced.

Whether Atlanta employees want to enjoy dark chocolate on its own or as an ingredient in a snack, there are many different options to offer your employees in the break room vending machine or micro-market. A bar of dark chocolate, roasted almonds covered in dark chocolate, or granola bars with dark chocolate are just a few healthy snacks that provide an energy boost and satisfy a sweet tooth. And don’t forget to include a variety of beverages such as coffee, tea, and bottled water.

Which dark chocolate snacks would your Atlanta employees like to enjoy? For more information about adding new snack and beverage options to your vending machines or micro-market, call PB&J Vending at 877-820-8363.