Monday, April 7, 2008

My Million Dollar Idea

Have you ever traveled with a child between the ages of 9 months and about 15 months? You know, that magical age when they are starting to develop their personality, their motor skills, and their desire to eat table food. Which they can't, at least not entirely. And what table food CAN they eat? Oh, pasta, peas, fruit, and cheese. Stuff that doesn't travel too well, at least not without a cooler, and at that age, you really don't need another item to drag around with you.





Here's my amazing idea. Take a vending machine, like this one:

and instead of sandwiches and other adult food, fill it with these items: baby carrots, apple slices, grapes (sliced?), cups of fruit cocktail type stuff, cheese sticks, yogurt (with spoons - BOTH my kids squirted the tubed stuff on themselves...in the same meal), diced ham and/or turkey, some basic crackers, plain cooked pasta, and to drink, maybe those take & toss sippy cups with juice or whole milk.

Heck, even adults without kids might be thankful for basic healthy food on the go. Like in these places: airports, mall food courts, hotel vending areas, and children's destinations, like museums and zoos.

I even have a name: Ciao Baby. You, cause you pronounce it "chow"...as in food. AND, it means hello and goodbye, like "aloha"...but with bit more of a cosmopolitan feel.

If anyone knows someone in vending, feel free to pass my idea on! It wouldn't be hard at all to do, since most of those foods listed are already packaged individually anyway...

And if they wanted to pass on some of the millions of dollars they would make, heck, I wouldn't say no.

2 comments:

Noel said...

Pepsi Americas services a lot of Fargo-Moorhead vending machines. They would probably be interested in building business at Younker Farm, the zoo, etc.

Anonymous said...

We just got back from an almost week-long trip to Madison (with Eli), and after lugging all his food around in coolers, I have to say that is an absolutely brilliant idea. Now we're also planning two more trips within the next month, but both of those involve airplanes, so if you could patent that idea real quick and get them in airports in about two weeks, you'd be my hero.