It has happened to me on multiple occasions. Buying a quick snack from a vending machine only to be hit by an expiration date weeks prior, or a machine that simply fails to dispense its products.
When looking for food on campus, you don’t have many options.
You can buy food from the cafes throughout the buildings, where you’ll inevitably end up spending more than the actual retail value of what you get.
Alternatively, you can take your chances with the vending machines, roll the dice, and hope what you wind up with is still safe to consume. That is, assuming a product is dispensed after you pay.
The product with the most distant past expiration date I purchased was from a machine on the lower floor of L Building. The Vitamin Water I bought last February had expired the previous October.
I am not alone in feeling there is an issue with the Humber vending machine situation.
Hunter Cron, a Humber business student, said he received a product that had expired months ago.
“I went in feeling like just having a juice, so I went to the vending machine, put money in, and got the drink,” Cron said.
“It looked a bit funky and when I opened it, it smelled a bit funky, so I looked at the date and it had expired about three months ago,” he said.
Humber Business student Hunter Cron sitting outside of the Math and Writing Centre. Photo credit: Liam Neilson
Cron said he once had a vending machine fail to dispense the food he had paid for on campus.
Ethan Sanders, a Guelph-Humber student living in Humber’s residence, told Humber News he had also experienced a case of expired food in the machines.
“I came back to res kind of late one night and wanted a quick snack,” he said.
“The kitchen was closed so I bought something from the vending machines and ended up with this cookie thing that was expired by a couple of weeks,” Sanders said.
I am not saying that every product is expired and every vending machine is out of order. That would simply be untrue. I am saying that people take a risk by attempting to buy a product from them and that is an issue.
The Associate Director of Ancillary Services at Humber College Michael Jeronimo, wrote to Humber News in an email stating that vending machines on campus are serviced no less than twice per week and that any issues with machines can be addressed with vendors directly.
He noted vendors facilitate refunds for machine malfunctions and product issues. Each machine has a label with the machine ID and the number to call.
Vending machines in Humber College L Building. Photo credit: Liam Neilson
Neither Sanders nor Cron was aware they were entitled to be refunded for their experiences with machines.
Jeronimo acknowledged in his email that the refund process was not well known and that they are currently exploring options of adding signage to the machines with details of how to address concerns.
The Humber community needs to see these changes to the machines will happen soon so that fewer customers are ripped off without being aware of the steps to fix it.