It was the email they dreaded: 'Can you please ensure all of your [vending] machines have been removed prior to June 4.”

And they're not just any vending machines. These were a major $250,000 investment for Carol Haimes and husband Allan Walker, and a big chunk of their livelihood.

Looking for new business – vending machine franchisee Allan Walker. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

'We wouldn't have bought the business just a year ago had we known this could happen,” says a distraught Carol.

Their four vending machines were strategically sited in a plum location at Tauranga Hospital – a captive market of patients, public, busy doctors and nurses all looking for an on the fly quick fix of chocolate, nuts, soda or chips.

'There were healthy options in there too,” says Carol. 'It's all about choices.”

The removal order reduced Allan to tears. That's because it takes a $126,000 wad out of his business each year. And he didn't see it coming.

'We are local people, building a local business and buying local,” says Carol. 'Now some Aucklanders have muscled us off our own patch. That business, that money, will be leaving the region.”

It was the Compass Group NZ – the Auckland company which holds the cleaning and catering contracts at the hospital – that ordered Carol and Allan out.

'We will be using our nominated national vending provider Vending Direct. We wish to thank you for your service,” Compass told Carol and Allan.

They are disappointed 'the DHB didn't stand up for local business”.

The Bay of Plenty District Health Board, however, wiped its hands.

Bay of Plenty District Health Board's support services business leader Sherida Cooper says their contract is with Compass 'to provide appropriate vending services which includes products in line with our healthy eating criteria”.

It's Compass which decides who'll provide that service – and Carol and Allan's Provender franchise didn't figure in their plans.

It's understood the BOPDHB put healthy products in an honesty snackbox in the surgeon's penthouse at the hospital.

'They wouldn't eat it,” says Provender business development manager Paulyne Hamilton.

'Surgeons are busy people and they wanted quick fix products – they wanted V drinks, which they drink like crazy, and they wanted their Coke, they wanted their chocky and chips.”

Provender understands there will be a zero tolerance of sugar products in hospital vending machines by the end of this year.

'But the people using those machines are grown-ups, they can makes choices,” says Paulyne.

'And why didn't Compass come to us and say ‘you don't have enough healthy options in your machines – fix it'. And we would have,” says Carol.

But they weren't consulted – nor were they given the chance to bid for the business. 'It was corporate Auckland arbitrarily deciding what's good for the people of Bay of Plenty,” says Paulyne.

But isn't that business? Isn't all fair in love and war?

'Yes,” she admits, 'but Compass could have made an effort to find out who and what is available in the regional vending industry before bringing down the axe.”

Or are they just victims of zealous DHBs around the country practising what they preach – healthy living and healthy eating.

'That too,” says Paulyne. 'Right throughout the country, DHBs are dictating what goes in vending machines. Even if staff tell us they want Mountain Dew, they're not allowed it. 'They're not allowed to be seen with those products in their machines.”

Apparently hospital cafeterias are under the same scrutiny – and anything with cream has been outlawed.

Compass Group says when it signed a national services contract with Vending Direct in 2013, that company didn't have a representative in the Bay of Plenty region. So it retained the existing Provendor Franchise owner.

When Vending Direct did get a representative here, Compass says shifting the contract to them was a natural consequence.

Compass says Vending Direct is working towards offering a range of healthy eating choices as per the DHB's food and nutrition guidelines and has proven to be a trusted supplier.

Compass says it regrets Carol Haimes feels she should have been given the opportunity to tender for the business. But because of the national contract with Vending Direct, this wasn't possible.

And the bad news for Carol and Allan may not end here. Their polytechnic contracts are up for renewal before the end of the year – and Paulyne suspects that business could be lost as well.