Chicago parks’ vending machines limiting offerings to healthy only
By Lisa Donovan Staff Reporter/ldonovan@suntimes.com August 30, 2011 5:08PM
The new look for Healthy vending at Chicago Park District. Mike Kelly, interim Chicago Park District General Superintendent and CEO, unveils the first of its new healthy snack vending machines at Humboldt Park field house, 1400 N. Sacramento Ave., Tuesday, August 30. 2011. | John H. White~Sun-Times
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Updated: November 16, 2011 1:30AM
The Chicago Park District is slowly saying “goodbye” to vending machines stocked with fried, salty tortilla chips and mega candy bars, and hello to granola bars and baked veggie chips.
On Tuesday, park officials formally announced they’ve been installing vending machines at fieldhouses — where kids congregate for day camps and soon enough afterschool art, music and athletic programs — across the city with healthier snacks that are lower in sodium, sugar and calories.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Mike Kelly, interim superintendent of the Chicago Park District, told the Sun-Times. “We’re trying to teach our kids to have healthier lifestyles. Let’s not give them pop.”
In May, the park district began installing the machines at fieldhouses around the city, including the fieldhouse in Humboldt Park where officials gathered Tuesday to talk about the new offerings. To date, 20 are up and running. By year’s end the goal is installing 96 machines in some of the 250 fieldhouses citywide.
“These foods are replacing our older vending snack machines which were full of all high-fat chips, any kind of candy bar you can imagine, any kind of high-fat, high-sugar foods,” said Colleen Lammel-Harmon, the park district’s wellness manager and a registered dietician. “It was junk food.”
The park district wanted to follow American Heart Association and other healthy guidelines and Compass Group USA, among the companies that bid on the deal, came up with a vending machine that delivers foods containing:
†No more than 35 percent fat, with the exception of healthy fruits and nuts, per serving.
†No more than 35 percent of unnatural sugars per serving.
†No more than 450 milligrams of sodium per serving.
†No more than 300 calories per portion.
Each machine has a gluten free offering and a peanut-free offering.
That includes 100-calorie cookie packs, Pirate’s Booty Sour Cream & Onion “baked rice and corn puffs” — described on the package as “all natural” and “gluten and trans fat free.” There’s also a 90-calorie blueberry Special K Bar and even strawberry whole grain Pop Tarts.
Each offering is $1, which park districts officials say is affordable.
In the last year-plus, park district officials had worked with one vendor to increase the number of healthier offerings — but Lammel-Harmon said she didn’t like what she saw.
“If you offered a few healthy (items) and more unhealthy, they’re [consumers are] going to buy the more unhealthy,” she said. “So we took a renegade stance: Let’s just offer healthy items.”
Compass owns Levy Restaurants, which is half of the joint venture “Park Concessions Management,” manager of the district’s concession program.
The park district is among a dozen city agencies on the Inter-Departmental Task Force on Childhood Obesity, a task force convened by the Chicago Department of Public Health.
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