Hot issues for vending – Summer 2023

PPWR: ENVI Members submit amendments

The legislative process on the proposed Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste (PPWR) is continuing, with the Environment (ENVI) Committee Members in the European Parliament submitting their amendments on the file.

Voting on all the tabled amendments will take place in October and the EVA’s focus now will be on gaining sufficient support for changes which will enable a better implementation in vending.

PFAS: EVA working group set up

The EVA Technical Committee met recently to discuss the issue of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

While it was recognised that PFAS exist in many applications, components and employed in wider industry use, the full extent of the components in vending machines needs to be investigated further.

To this end, the technical committee agreed to set up a smaller PFAS working group with the aim of determining the EVA response to the European Chemical Agency’s (ECHA) consultation on a potential restriction, and in a second step to investigate which components would need replacing in machines and if and how alternatives currently exist.

To reiterate, the ECHA will finalise its opinion after the consultation and submit this to the EU Commission, who will decide to regulate on the matter.

Right to repair text published: EVA responds to latest consultation.

The EU Commission has published its legislative proposal on common rules to promote the repair of goods – the so called ‘Right to repair.’

The objective of the legislation is to provide consumers with further rights to have their products repaired by the manufacturer, rather than necessarily replaced, and hence lead to a more sustainable use of resources.

With refrigerated vending machines in scope, the EVA responded to the EU Commission consultation to express our views that urgent clarity needs provided in the text.

NAMA publishes new standard on vending-micro market integration.

The NAMA VDI Committee of technical experts has published a new standard called ‘VDI VMS-MMS – Vending to Micro Market Integration Standard’ Version 2.0. This replaced the first version which was published in 2016.

The newly ratified standard more efficiently integrates vending management system data with micro-market system data to enable aggregated reporting, messaging, management, and security.

Key changes include:

• VDI 2.0 is built on the REST/JSON protocol, replacing SOAP/XML.
• VDI 2.0 represents a new standard for remote DEX interchange.
• VDI 2.0 includes an expanded system of error reporting and messaging.
• VEI 2.0 increases the two-way communications between VMS and MMS.
• VDI 2.0 enhances inventory and financial management applications.
• VDI 2.0 adds planogramming and restocking interfaces to the standard.
• VSI 2.0 incorporates more security features than its predecessor.

The standard can be found on the NAMA website: namanow.org