WELL Building Standards & Vending Machines: Promoting Healthier Choices

When the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) took a look at the overall landscape of building environments that people spend their time in, it found a lot of qualities were missing to make these better suited for people. Office buildings, schools, and medical facilities Most that serve as places where people work and serve people were built to be workplaces, but weren’t built to make sure they were the healthiest environment for humans.

The IWBI, based in New York, NY has a goal to create a global movement that will “transform health and well-being with a people-first approach to communities, buildings and organizations.” With that in mind, they developed WELL Building standards, to try to maximize human health in the workplace environment.

The standards they developed took a look at 7 things that affect our environment: air quality, light, water, comfort, fitness, mind and nourishment. The standards that were developed are based on medical research that studies how humans are impacted by our environments. 

To meet these standards, office buildings and those that supply goods to office buildings, have to think about the specific technology they use and the design strategies that promote well-being.

This might mean building with non-toxic materials, adding air filters to improve air quality and designing spaces that encourage physical activity. In our case, this means offering snacks and beverages that are better for your health.

Why are WELL Certification Standards Important?

In the nourishment category, we believe WELL Certification is a worthy standard to strive for, so we have taken measures to make sure our vending machines are WELL Certified. What people choose to eat during the day can either work against our health or work for it. Sugary snacks and beverages may give us a jolt of quick energy then leave us depleted and feeling tired. Food can either provide sustained energy with lots of vitamins and minerals, or it can fill us with empty calories, providing no true nourishment.

Complying with WELL Certification means we don’t just stick a vending machine in an office and fill it with processed snacks. Our approach is to think carefully about the selection available for our vending machines and choose based on optimum nutrition. That way, offices can prioritise health in the foods that are made available to purchase.

What are the WELL Certification Standards That Apply to Our Vending Machines?

The WELL Certification standards we work within for the nourishment category are the following:

“Encourages the availability of wholesome foods, supports healthy eating habits, and aims to minimise the presence of processed ingredients."

So for vending machines, what does that mean? Read on to find out how we make sure The Jar Healthy Vending Machine selections meet  WELL guidelines.

Fewer Refined Ingredients

Firstly, we choose snacks with fewer refined ingredients, like sugar. At least 50% of our beverage offerings have only 15g or fewer grams of sugar per 240mL serving. Our vending machines also contain a range of beverages with no more than 30g of sugar per container, keeping our offerings within WELL’s sugar limitations.

For vending machine snacks, we’ve selected things that are not only tasty, but contain no more than 30g of sugar per serving. When it comes to grain-based foods, the snacks that are available prioritise whole grains as the primary ingredient.

No Trans Fat In These Snacks

It’s not necessarily easy to find snacks that meet our stringent standards, but it’s important to the customer’s overall wellbeing, so we make it a priority. Along with fewer refined ingredients, the selections in our vending machines have no partially hydrogenated oils, which ticks the box for WELL’s trans-fat ban and promotes heart-healthy options.

Clear Food Allergy Labelling

People with food allergies often have to avoid vending machine snacks altogether since most vending machines don’t make it easy to buy foods without allergens. So, we have made it a point to only have foods in our vending machines that are clearly labelled for common allergens, like peanuts, fish, shellfish, soy, dairy, eggs, wheat, tree nuts, and gluten.

To make it even easier to fill your machine, our available snack menu can be filtered by allergen or dietary requirement, ensuring the machine only displays the food available that meets the needs of those with stringent dietary requirements.

Artificial Substance Labelling

Avoiding artificial substances is important to people who want to maximise their health. With common grab-and-go snacks in most vending machines, that can be quite difficult to do. So, our vending machines only offer snacks that have clear labelling.

The selections inside are clearly labeled for any colours, flavours, sweeteners, brominated vegetable oils, potassium bromate, BHA, BHT, MSG, hydrolysed vegetable protein, sodium nitrate, nitrites, and sulphites: all things that you might want to steer clear of when eating healthily.

Detailed Nutritional Information

Have you ever stood in front of a vending machine, craving a snack but wary of what the ingredients are that might not be good for you? We’ve solved that challenge by making the nutritional information of each snack easy to view before a customer purchases.

On our vending machines, you can select an item, then nutritional information is displayed on the digital screen, so you can see macronutrients (protein, fats and carbs) as well as micronutrients (including vitamins A & C, calcium, and iron) before making a choice. This makes our machines popular with savvy buyers who want more control over the convenience foods they eat during the workday. Being clear and up front about the ingredients in the foods offered is one way we meet the nutritional transparency goal of the WELL standards.

Food Alternatives for Dietary Preferences

Choosy consumers love our vending offerings. If your office has a large peanut-free crowd or a vegetarian crowd, our vending machines are a great choice. The premium snack selections available make it easy to accommodate any of these preferences, as well as gluten-free, lactose-free, egg-free or vegan choices.

Tech-enabled and WELL certified

The Jar Healthy Vending machines are the best of both worlds: tech-enabled smart machines that also meet WELL certification standards. Whether you choose the MK2, with the large 41” digital touchscreen, or the MK3 with its 22” customisable, interactive screen, that holds up to 480 items, the selections we offer are the best in the snack industry.

For those who need a larger capacity vending machine, check out the Smart Fridge, equipped with all the interactive features and nutritional displays of the smaller machines, and holds 512 items.

Thanks to our focus on WELL certification standards for nutrition, you can feel confident that placing our machines in hospitals, medical facilities, schools or fitness studios will give your employees and visitors the best selections in healthy snacks available on the market. Investing in WELL-aligned vending solutions is not just a step toward compliance—it’s a step toward better health for all.