Devices let you check calories in snack machines

— -- There are 270 calories in that six-pack of Oreos you're eyeing in the office vending machine.

And soon, with the help of a touch-screen device from technology start-up VendScreen, you'll be able to find that out before you buy the cookies. Its soft-drink-can-size device mounts on vending machines and displays each item sold, letting customers see nutritional information and filter product information by dietary requirements.

Founder Paresh Patel says the device will help ease the burden on the vending industry, which the Food and Drug Administration estimates will have to put in 14 million hours annually to comply with new federal regulations requiring those who operate 20 or more machines to display the calorie count of each item.

VendScreen's technology links with the system that a vending machine operator already uses and automatically updates the nutritional information display to reflect what is currently in a machine.

"We applaud the efforts of companies like this one for coming up with innovative solutions to help make this information available to consumers," says Jackie Clark, spokeswoman for the National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA).

Similar technologies such as the MIND (Make Informed Nutritional Decisions) device from Vendors Exchange also attach to vending machines and provide a digital display of nutritional information, show ads and run slide shows to promote products. Vendors Exchange has about 2,500 MIND devices in use across the country.

VendScreen plans to test 500 devices by April and has already presold 10,000 to be rolled out after the NAMA industry show in Las Vegas at the end of that month.

"We have a lot more interest than we're able to fulfill," Patel says.

VendScreen's Android-powered device can display ads; accept credit, debit and mobile wallet payments; allow users to redeem coupon codes; and collect data to be relayed back to the operator when a product needs to be restocked or if a machine is broken.

"When you can put something with a brain on that vending machine and do cross promotions and do loyalty points and have the supplier actually involved in the promoting of their product at the machine level, it's a huge opportunity for our industry," says Kevin Van Hazel, a managing partner at Ace Vending in Arizona, which operates about 4,000 vending machines. The company is in talks with Patel to use VendScreen.

Patel, a vending machine operator, saw an opportunity to update an industry that "hasn't changed in 30 years."

"You literally still walk up, put your buck in and press A1 to get your Cheetos," he says. "There was really an opportunity from an operator standpoint to improve that experience and improve sales."

The price hasn't been announced, but Patel says it will be $200 to $400. The MIND costs $325. Vending machines cost $5,000 to $8,000, according to NAMA.

Once the FDA releases a final rule on calorie disclosure, vending machine operators who have 20 or more machines will have one year to comply with the law.