Jeff Marsh is the president and CEO of Healthy You Vending. Which is like a franchise, but better, he says. Because there’s no royalties or ongoing fees. It’s a one-time investment. You get the support you need with no strings attached. You can be up and running in weeks, not months. Also, if the market changes, so can your products. Easily swap them out to keep your customers happy. Train someone else to keep ’em stocked and use remote reporting to manage from anywhere.
The hours are flexible: work as much or as little as you want, and whenever it’s convenient. Be nimble, agile, and adaptable. HealthyYou doesn’t tie you to a multi-year lease like a franchise would. Your machines can move as new location opportunities open up. “It’s a great time to get into healthy vending,” Jeff says. “In our 22 years experience, we’ve seen recessions, economic booms, even a pandemic. But in every market condition entrepreneurs are always looking for a turnkey business model that helps them be successful.”
“This often leads them to franchises, and increasingly to us,” he continues. “We offer franchise-level support but without franchise royalties or other ongoing fees or the typical restrictions that come with a franchise. Our business is also technology-centric and not people-centric, with 90% of the work done remotely.” One of Healthy You’s operators, Lisa Bartholomew, has been at it for five years. She’s now got 17 vending machines and wants to add more. Vending’s a booming, $22 billion dollar industry, and growing.
“The explosion of fitness centers, healthy grocers like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Sprouts, and even healthy sections within traditional grocery stores—all of it’s expanding,” Lisa explains. “Why is that? Because the demand is getting stronger and stronger. Our operators, with their smart machines, are benefitting by providing options for this ever-growing group of consumers who want to eat and drink healthy products. And while no business can be 100% recession-proof, vending is about as close as you can get.”
The business model looks like so. You sign up, get trained, place machines in locations where there’s a demand for healthy options, then monitor purchase activity and trends from the comfort of home. When a machine gets low on something, you print the refill requirements, visit the machine (or have someone else do it), restock it, and take any cash. Most transactions nowadays, however, will be made with smart phone or credit or debit card. Either way, this’ll take about 20 minutes and most operators restock their machines once a week.
Each HealthyYou machine is made in America and comes with a lifetime warranty. The machines are very user-friendly and hardly ever malfunction. HealthyYou will connect you with food and drink manufacturers who’ll hook you up with the best quality products at the absolute lowest prices. They do not take a cut when you purchase inventory. And because it’s not a franchise, you don’t need their approval to try out new products in your machines. Yeah yeah, so what’s this gonna cost and how much can you make, right?
Total investment is anywhere from $55,000 to $185,000. I couldn’t find any reliable information on how much one of these healthy vending machines might make you. One article I found said the average vending machine earns less than $5 a week, but a well-placed machine could exceed $100 per week. Let’s assume these healthier ones, placed in perfect locations, would do the latter. So if you had 10 of ’em, that’s $4,000+ a month in semi-passive income. Not horrible until you consider the initial investment, which would still take years to pay off.
