Whether you are thinking of investing in vending machines in schools, you want to start a business that caters vending machine services to hotels, or you are just interested in vending machines at work places in the country, here are a few facts that you need to know before you decide to buy vending machines.

1. Did you know that the first vending machines were developed in Ancient Greece? They accepted coins in exchange for holy water. Though they are far different from the modern day vending machines in schools, they still operated on the same principles of money making.

2. According to a recent survey, there are approximately 4,640,000 vending machines in the United States at the moment. If you include all of the ones that are in use around the word, the total number would be astounding.

3. Though for decades, vending machines have operated on only cash, in recent years, vending machines have started to accept credit and debit cards. These machines have to be connected to the internet usually in order to transfer the banking details in real time.

4. Several school districts in the country have policies on the kind of snacks that can be sold out of their vending machines. They do this in an effort to try to keep only healthy options available.

5. Did you know that Italy has vending machines that will dispense full pizzas upon request? If you go to Japan, you would be astounded with some of the things that you can get out of a vending machine.