What did the pilot study find?
It shows that young people will choose to buy healthier drinks, such as milk, water and fruit juice, from vending machines, even when they are confronted with a choice between options from their existing vending machines and the healthier drinks. Pupils purchased about 70,000 healthier drinks during the 24 weeks of the study – averaging about 580 each school day. The most popular items were pure juices, flavoured milk/milk shakes, semi-skimmed milk and mineral water. If extended to, say, 1 in 5 secondary schools in England and Wales, then young people would reap the benefit of an additional 14 million bottles and cartons of milk, milkshakes and pure juices and water every year.
