American Green Consolidates Business With Acquisition of Biometric Vending Machines Maker

American Green will be handling vending machine production in-house after completing its acquisition of Vendweb. Vendweb has been building the biometric American Green Xpress (AGX) vending machines for the past five years, delivering machines that use face and finger vein recognition to verify the identities of registered consumers.

The AGX machines use biometrics to facilitate the sale of age-restricted goods like cannabis and alcohol. People are asked to provide proof of identity when they register their biometrics, and then a biometric scan is enough to prove that they are of legal age when they purchase one of those products from an automated (and self-service) vending machine.

The Founder and President of Vendweb will be staying on with American Green as the head of the new Vendweb division. Lindel Creed has been working with vending machines for more than 20 years, and will oversee the production of regular vending machines that sell soda, snacks, and other products that do not need to be placed behind an age gate.

For its part, American Green is hoping that the arrangement will reduce production costs and make it easier to manufacture custom machines for specific clients. The two companies did not disclose the terms of the acquisition, though they noted that Vendweb’s non-biometric machines brought in $395,000 in 2021, while the overall vending machine industry is expected to create $8.9 billion in revenue in the US in 2022.

“The acquisition of Vendweb made great sense for the company for a number of reasons,” said American Green President David Gwyther. “We now have full control over the smart vending division allowing us to significantly reduce manufacturing, development, and design costs. We have had a number of requests for specific capabilities and functions from the hotel and hospitality industry and the Vendweb acquisition will make it much easier to meet the needs of future customers who want custom smart vending applications.”

American Green partnered with Jumio to add facial recognition to its machines in 2021. Emerald Organic Products, meanwhile, is also planning to use biometrics to facilitate the self-service distribution of cannabis and cannabis-related products.

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May 18, 2022 – by Eric Weiss