A Snack-by-Snack Guide to Severance’s Vending Machine
Your outie wants some Lumon-brand candy
If your social media consumption is anything like mine, you’ve been bombarded with theories about Lumon, the Eagans, Kier, and Cold Harbor for weeks — all in the lead up to last Thursday night, when Apple TV’s hit series Severance aired its Season 2 finale.
Not that I’m complaining, keep ‘em coming! But, the fan theory crazy has held up a mirror to my own gullibility: Upon first glance, I have a tendency to believe every single Severance speculation on the internet.
But, by the time I put my phone down and look at something other than a screen, I realize most of the fan hypotheses out there just don’t add up. Which is why I thought it was high time I throw my own thoughts into the mix, however bite-sized they may be.
Let’s get the obligatory establishments out of the way:
One part science fiction, one part mystery/thriller, and one part scathing critique of modern working life, Severance took the world by storm upon its Apple TV premiere in 2022. Dubbed after Lumon Industries “severance program,” the show follows the lives and times Mark (Adam Scott) and his colleagues (all of whom have elected to have brain surgery that separates their “innie” workplace memories from their “outie” rest-of-life minds) as they attempt to uncover what their employer is up to. If this is new information to you, you’d do well to stop reading and get caught up, because this is going to be a spoiler ridden affair.
In the past few weeks, The New York Times, Eater, and Polygon featured series prop master Catherine Miller in food-forward pieces about the show. (Thank you, wise journalists, for following Film Flavor’s trailblazing food-in-film efforts.) To me, this media coverage suggests Apple TV’s team wants us to pay very close attention to the food, as it will likely play a pivotal role in Severance’s just-announced Season 3.
Unlike the aforementioned publications, here at Film Flavor, we are lucky enough to have the luxury of time. Free from deadlines and quotas, we’ll be spending the break between seasons publishing a multi-part breakdown of every single food and drink item in Severance: Today’s post is Part One.
(The entire series is already 5,000+ words, so we’re breaking it in to parts. If you’re curious — and you’re new — hit the subscribe button below ensure you never miss a mysterious and important post.)
Now, without further ado, let’s kick things off with today’s main dish: Lumon’s Vending Machine.
Spoilers Ahead for Apple TV’s Severance, Seasons 1 and 2
A First Look at Lumon’s Vending Machine
Throughout Season 1 — starting with the beginning in Episode 2 — we see the vending machine in shots of the MacroData Refinement kitchenette. In the clearest angle I found, we can see Lumon’s vending machine offers the following snacks:
🫛 Edamame: Dry Roasted
🍇 Raisins: Shriveled
🥜 Peanuts: Roasted and Salted
🔪 Beets: Dried and Sliced
🫐 Blueberries: Dried
🫚 Ginseng: Cubed
🌻 Sunflower Seeds
🥩 Meat: Smoked and Salted
(The word “meat” is obscurbed, but I deduced)
In some shots, especially ones like in this behind-the-scenes video posted to the Lumon Industries LinkedIn page, we can see containers of other sizes and shapes on the machine’s top and bottom rows. While we can’t read the containers, here are my guesses:
Bottom Row:
🍕 Pizza (in the left, red, triangular container)
🍟 French Fries (in the middle, pink container)
🫛 Peas (in the right, green container, see blow)
Top Row:
Your guess is as good as mine. (At first I thought it could be “fruit leather,” but as we’ll cover below, that tasty treat isn’t added until Season 2.) Any takers? Let me know in the comments:
Note: My “Peas” guess is attributed to the above shot of Petey’s desk in Season 1, Episode 3, where this green snack container appears, originally pointed out by these redditors.
Now, I’m not Jewish, but I did find redditors discussing how many, if not all, of foods found in the vending machine may be pareve and kosher. However, given the pizza slice-shaped box in the bottom row, this idea might not have as much merit as the internet theorizers hope… unless the triangle box is a candied nut? This could go on!
Apple TV’s Severance Vending Machine Promotional Stunts:
It’s worth noting that Apple TV has used the vending machine motif in its real-life marketing efforts since the show’s premiere.
In 2022, there were reports of a Severance vending machine at San Diego Comic Con, from which attendees could use tokens to purchase Lumon butter pretzels and shriveled raisins
Fast-forward to 2025, in promotion of Season 2, Apple sent influencers miniature vending machine PR packages, including perks like AirPods, mugs, and marshmellows as well as typical Lumon vending machine snacks like cut beans and fruit leather:
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Wait, cut beans and fruit leather? That’s right, Season 2 brought some new snacks to the machine…
Season 2: Snacks Become Some of Lumon’s Most Nefarious Office Perks
In Season 2’s opening episode, the innie team watches the claymation orientation video in which a narrator says “The Macrodat uprising yielded bounteous reforms” including “tasty new snacks, like fruit leather, cut beans, Christmas mints, and salsa.”
We also see, for the first time, imagery of Lumon water drop-shaped containers in a vending machine. The innies watch as a claymation Dylan vibrates with joy after downing a drop-full of Christmas mint candy.
In Episode 3, Irving visits Optics and Design. He sits with Felicia as they dine on what appears to be sandwiches from wavy, Lumon containers. Irving also sips what I assume is Lumon boxed water, using a teal blue straw. (This color’s significance will become apparent in the upcoming Part Two of this Film Flavor Severance series.)
While we’ll be covering the Macrodata Refiner’s lunches in Part Two, to me, this scene suggests the Optics and Design team might have access to different foods than Macrodata Refinement. Could this mean the vending machine contents are unique to each department? (After all, those wavy edges would catch any designers eye.)
By Season 2 Episode 9, we watch as Dylan and Helly have an emotional conversation in the Macrodata Refinement kitchenette. The camera angles bounce all over the place in this scene, blessing us food-in-film lovers with money shots of the vending machine in the background.
Crucially, we see that the team’s vending machine has been updated to include those Lumon water drop-shaped containers in the top row of the machine, just as the claymation orientation video had promised.
Upon further inspection, it is clear that Season 2’s finale vending machine has been updated to add many new snacks, without taking away the old choices. New rows have been added, bringing each row closer together (just as this season has brought the refining team closer to one another... okay I’ll stop with the sap.)
While we know one of the four water drop containers is filled with Christmas Candies, the snacks remain out of focus, rendering the text illegible.
Which brings us to Cold Harbor, the Season 2 Finale…
While the rest of you had your jaws on the floor, shooketh watching Dylan push that vending machine in front of the restroom door, trapping Mr. Milchik in surprising and triumphant plot twist, you better believe my eyes went straight to the vending machine contents.
As Dylan shoves the heavy machine across the room, just to the right of his ever-agape mouth, we can see 🥭 Mango is a new addition to the snack repository. Closer inspection reveals there are other, tinfoil-topped circular containers. (Is that yogurt in the fourth row? hummus, perhaps?)
Using Lumon’s own creations to fight back is the innie’s only possible course of action, as their existence takes place almost entirely inside the company building. But Mr. Milchik himself appears to have given the innies these new snack collections.
Just as Dylan weilded a defiant jazz dance session against Mr. Milchik in season one, the vending machine obstacle is just one more example of Dylan using Mr. Milchik’s own carefully crafted perks against him.
Why are the Lumon Vending Machine Snacks so Aesthetically Pleasing?
There’s not a doubt in my mind that Lumon’s well-packaged snacks, if brought to our reality’s market, would be top sellers at Whole Foods, Erewhon and the like. They look as hip as a New York-based pistachio milk brand, but with the variety of 365.
Sure, Lumon fills the severed floor with exclusively Lumon-brand foods to keep their test variables to a minimum. Even so, the pleasing aesthetic of the vending machine snacks serves Lumon’s interests.
Lumon aims to pacify its innies with perks — be they finger traps, video media, or choreographed merriment marching band performances. Sharp design is integral to Lumon and the facade of perfection the company upkeeps.
The show’s production design team likely created Lumon’s particular design aesthetics to elicit an uncanny, unsettling reaction from the audience, but this choice is made all the more useful by aligning with Lumon’s motives.
What’s more, the snacks don’t even seem like they’d be particularly tasty. (I personally, am not going feral for a few raisins.) As we’ll see in the upcoming Part Two, Lumon has a tendency to frame the most mundane foods and perks as a prize all should be markedly grateful for.
After all, this is the company that had Mr. Milchik tell the Macrodata Refinement team a ~twenty-foot waterfall was the largest in the world. Lumon probably has Milkshake telling the innies that Lumon’s fruit leather is one of the finest delicacies in all the land.
Coming Up in Severance Snacks Part Two: Candy, Chips and Control
Next up, we’ll be talking about the food’s you likely expect — eggs, pineapples, melons, of course — but also potato chips (My goodness, this show has so. many. potatoes.) And — next week — I’ll share my unhinged nut-forward rabbit hole I went down after watching an episode of The White Lotus.
Don’t worry, we also have more sane posts in the queue: On-screen Waiters, Pizza Hut, and the brilliance of Nancy Meyers are just a few of the topics we’ll be covering in the weeks to come. Stay subscribed to stay tuned!
Every time you hit a button below, a popcorn kernel somewhere pops to perfection.
Disagree with me? Did I miss a vending machine snack? Let me know! ⬇️
With Gratitude,
