The biennial European event for the vending sector, Venditalia, will be held at fieramilanocity from June 6 to 9 with 247 exhibitors from 20 countries – 68 per cent of them exhibiting for the first time.
Organised by Venditalia Servizi and promoted by CONFIDA, the Italian Association of Automatic Distribution, the trade fair will include exhibitors ranging from vending machine manufacturers to producers of consumer goods and management companies across 13,000m2.
The event will highlight market trends and demands from technological evolution with increasingly smarter vending machines thanks to IoT technologies, to eco-sustainability of low-consumption machines; green logistics; low emission vans; organic and locally sourced foods and fair trade.
As a hub for automatic distribution, visitors can learn about how new smart automatic vending machines with the resultant smart phone connectivity are changing the face of the industry. They will be able to develop business relationships, discover novelties and market trends and explore in-depth technical and technological topics.
The President of Venditalia, Ernesto Piloni
In addition to the exhibition area, Venditalia hosts conferences, debates, international talk shows and meetings on the most current topics of the sector.
The President of Venditalia, Ernesto Piloni said: “Venditalia is the most important European event in automatic distribution, both for exhibition space and number of visitors. The event, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, allows exhibitors from all over the world to preview the most innovative vending solutions and the main products distributed. With its 247 exhibitors, on more than 13,000m2 of exhibition space, the 2018 edition of Venditalia will be able to show how much this sector is evolving. Thanks to cutting-edge technology and Italian know-how exported all over the world, our country is a European leader in the production of vending machines. Today, the sector is experiencing a real “digital revolution”. The new vending machines are connected to the Internet, they are fitted with touchscreens for more effective communication with the consumer and, through the use of an App, offer different types of payment systems avoiding the use of cash. There will be examples of all of this and more from June 6 to 9 at Venditalia.”
The president of CONFIDA, Massimo Trapletti said: “Innovation is the keyword of the event,” adding that Venditalia would to help to outline the future of the vending sector which employs over 30,000 people in Italy – a host country for many of the most prominent machine manufacturers.
The president of CONFIDA, Massimo Trapletti
Vending factfile:
AUTOMATIC AND PORTIONED. In the last year, the automatic sector grew by +1.87% for a value of 1.8 billion euro and a total of five billion consumed items. The portioned sector in 2017 showed a turnover of 1.7 billion euro with a +5.1% increase generated by 6.1 billion consumed items. Capsules for households are the driving force behind the portioned sector, with an 11.3% increase.
COLD DRINKS AND COFFEE AT THE TOP. The growth of the automatic market in 2017 (+1.87%) is mainly due to the growth in consumption of cold drinks (+5.01%), which represent 19.7% of total distribution. In particular, there was an increase in the consumption of water (+ 5.80%) that, with over 760 million bottles of water supplied, is the second best-selling product of vending machines after coffee. Last year, coffee consumption from vending machines was over 2.7 billion, with a 0.59% increase. A “plus” sign was also shown by snacks which amount to 15,5% of total consumption, up 0.58.
VENDING MACHINES, A RECORD IN ITALY. There are more than 810,000 vending machines installed throughout Italy which leads the way in Europe followed by France with 590,000 and Germany with 550,000.
