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Your next soft drink or snack purchase could benefit a neglected or abused animal.

Charitable Vending Management Inc. was launched in January as a new division of The Wittern Group, a Des Moines-based manufacturer of vending machines.

The for-profit company, which is staffed by sales manager Bill Fankell and marketing director Julie Burgess, asks the vendors that purchase its machines to donate 10 percent of their net profits from those machines to charity.

It works like this:

Charitable Vending partners with nonprofit organizations and finds high-traffic venues, such as malls and airports, in which to place its clients’ machines. Then it installs the equipment at no charge with customized signage to promote the nonprofit’s brand. The charity may also opt for an attached donation box.

“It’s a win for everybody involved because we get a place to put new equipment in the marketplace, our vendor gets to expand his business and get new accounts, and then the charity reaps the benefit of the donation,” Burgess said.

Of the nearly 200 snack and pop machines that Charitable Vending has sold, including about 20 in Greater Des Moines, around 97 percent support animal shelters such as the Animal Rescue League of Iowa.

In August, the company will roll out a new line of pet supply vending machines, which will be stocked with products from West Chester, Pa.-based DogToys.com Inc.

“We really have been welcomed by the animal shelter community,” Burgess said. “They are looking for all the help they can get to raise funds, and this is perfect for them.”

“We know that good locations for an animal supply vending machine are few and far between,” Fankell said, noting that the new machines will be marketed to amusement parks, pet-friendly hotels, kennels and other venues.

“It feels like we’ve just chipped away at the molecule of an iceberg, and there are so many directions you can run with it,” Fankell said, adding that pet products are an untapped market in an approximately $48 billion vending supply industry.