Short answer: Richmond industrial land covers more ground than Burnaby's, in bigger pieces. Metro Vancouver's inventory counts 1,741 hectares in Richmond against 1,144 in Burnaby, with an average parcel of 1.6 hectares vs 1.0. Online, the two look alike and both look quiet: our January 2026 count found a median of 8 Google reviews for 60 Richmond industrial listings and 11 for 69 in Burnaby. Neither number says anything about the people working inside, which is what decides whether a site can carry a vending machine.
This report is for warehouse, plant and distribution managers, and for industrial landlords, comparing the two biggest industrial areas north of the Fraser and close to it. It combines Metro Vancouver's regional inventory, VendFynd's own listing counts and Burnaby's licence open data.
A note on method. We planned this comparison around opening hours from a fresh Lead Finder hunt in Richmond, to match the September 2026 Burnaby hunt. That Richmond hunt hasn't run, so we don't compare hours here. Instead we compare both cities on the January 2026 run, which used the same search in each city.
The land
| Richmond | Burnaby | |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial parcels | 1,118 | 1,164 |
| Industrial land | 1,741 ha | 1,144 ha |
| Average parcel | 1.6 ha | 1.0 ha |
| Share of the region's inventory | 15% | 10% |
Source: Metro Vancouver, 2020 Regional Industrial Lands Inventory, Technical Report (March 2021), Table 4.1. Richmond includes lands at YVR.
Richmond is the second-largest industrial market in the region after Surrey. The inventory notes that Richmond's figure includes the airport, that 271 hectares were "Other / Vacant" (97 hectares of vacant port land and 62 hectares of vacant airport land among them), and that Richmond has the region's largest share of its inventory on strata lots, 9%. Burnaby and New Westminster together had only 42 hectares in that "Other / Vacant" group: Burnaby's industrial land is close to fully used.
For vending, the parcel size is the useful part. A larger average parcel tends to mean larger buildings and more people per site, though the inventory doesn't count workers. The strata share matters too: a Richmond strata industrial complex can have dozens of small units sharing one parking lot and one owners' corporation, which changes who you ask about a shared machine.
The listings
| January 2026 run | Richmond | Burnaby |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial listings kept | 60 (of 75 found) | 69 (of 99 found) |
| Median Google reviews | 8 | 11 |
| Middle half of listings | 2 to 38 reviews | 3 to 35 reviews |
| Fewer than 10 reviews | 33 (55%) | 32 (46%) |
| 100 or more reviews | 6 (10%) | 5 (7%) |
| Median rating (listings with a rating) | 3.9 (51 listings) | 4.25 (64 listings) |
| Rated 4.5 or higher | 13 of 51 | 28 of 64 |
| Has a website | 48 (80%) | 62 (90%) |
| Primary Google type "storage" | 23 | 10 |
VendFynd analysis of Google Places listings found within 5 km of each city centre, January 2026. See "About this data".
Three things stand out:
- Reviews are no guide. More than half the Richmond listings had fewer than 10 reviews. We made the same point across 16 site types in our Google reviews vs foot traffic report: the best vending sites are often the ones nobody reviews.
- Richmond listings skew to storage and distribution. 23 of the 60 Richmond listings carry "storage" as their primary Google type, against 10 of 69 in Burnaby, and 8 Richmond listings carry a food type. That fits the land: Richmond's industrial areas sit around the airport, the river and the port.
- Richmond's ratings run lower. A median of 3.9 against 4.25. Industrial ratings mostly come from drivers, pickups and visitors, so this says more about counters and docks than about the people on the floor. We note it, but wouldn't read much into it.
Burnaby by licence size
Burnaby publishes its business licences as open data, and its industrial licence types carry a size band. On October 12, 2026:
| Burnaby licence group | 1–50 persons | 51–150 persons | 151+ persons | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturers | 343 | 18 | 12 | 373 |
| Warehouses | 333 | 10 | 1 | 344 |
| Wholesalers | 356 | 16 | 0 | 372 |
| All three | 1,032 | 44 | 13 | 1,089 |
City of Burnaby business licences, open data, extract 2026-10-12. VendFynd count by licence type name.
So 57 Burnaby industrial licences are in a band of 51 people or more. The 1–50 band is wide: it holds both a three-person importer and a 45-person shift operation, so it can't tell you which small sites qualify. We didn't find an equivalent Richmond dataset with size bands.
On hours, our September 2026 hunt found 70 of 86 Burnaby industrial listings posting hours on Google and only 1 posting 24/7, while 6 said on their own websites that they run around the clock (Burnaby hours report). We can't yet say the same for Richmond.
What it means if you run a site in either city
- Count people, not reviews. A machine needs roughly 30–40 people on a normal day. The site-fit scorer asks the questions an operator would.
- In a strata complex, think shared. Several small units can reach the numbers together; the owners' corporation or property manager usually decides on common areas.
- Licence fees are small and the operator's. Richmond charges $37.50 per machine. Burnaby charges $39 (coin) or $112 (card) in 2026, rising to $41 and $117 from January 1, 2027 under the schedule adopted on September 22, 2026. More in our licence fee guide.
With VendFynd, it's $0 to you: the operator covers the machine, install, stocking, service and removal, and you provide the spot and an outlet (about $15–20 a month in power for a drink machine). Your people choose the menu, and commission is usually included, agreed in writing before install. See if your site qualifies, or read the host terms.
About this data
- Listings: VendFynd Lead Finder, earlier CLI version, run in January 2026 within 5 km of each city centre with the same search terms. We kept listings with an address in the city and a Google type that belongs to "industrial" (shops, parks, contractors, offices and similar were removed): 60 of 75 in Richmond and 69 of 99 in Burnaby. A listing without a review count counts as 0 reviews; ratings are medians of listings that have one. Aggregates only: no business is named. A 5 km radius covers central Richmond and central Burnaby, not every industrial area in either city.
- Land: Metro Vancouver 2020 Regional Industrial Lands Inventory, Technical Report (March 2021), Table 4.1 and the sub-region summaries. Areas are gross hectares.
- Licences: City of Burnaby open data, 20,093 approved licences on 2026-10-12. The size band is part of the licence type name, so it is what the business declared for its licence category, not a head count. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Burnaby.
- Not compared: opening hours in Richmond, because the Richmond Lead Finder hunt hasn't run.
Sources
- Metro Vancouver, 2020 Regional Industrial Lands Inventory, Technical Report: https://metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/Documents/metro-vancouver-2020-industrial-lands-inventory-technical-report.pdf
- City of Burnaby, Business Licences (open data): https://data.burnaby.ca/datasets/burnaby::business-licences/about, extract 2026-10-12
- City of Burnaby, Consolidated Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 14485 (consolidation 2026.7, Schedule A2): https://bylaws.burnaby.ca/media/Consolidated/14485CC.pdf
- City of Richmond, Consolidated Fees Bylaw No. 8636: https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/BL_8636_Consolidated_with_ABLs_10699__10702_and_10720_11102578073.pdf
All accessed 2026-10-12.