fully automatic machines...

These machines are the ones I’m sure most people visualise when they think about vending machines. The ones you see in public sites, the swimming baths, the exhibition halls or the leisure centres.

They are also the machines that originally gave vending the bad name that it had two or three decades ago! Those of you who are old enough to remember the early fully automatic machines will doubtless remember the reputation they had…and with some justification. All the drinks were dispensed from the same spout and if the person before you had selected a soup…well, it was impossible to tell what your drink was supposed to be!!!

I’m really pleased to be able to tell you that like other industries, vending has come on leaps and bounds in the past twenty years. The product being dispensed from today’s modern fully- automatic vending machines is as good, if not better, than you would be served in many high-class restaurants. Obviously the product being dispensed depends largely on the product being put into the machine. To use the computer vernacular, “Garbage in, Garbage out”.

Many vending machines today use branded products, Nescafe, Kenco, Douwe Egberts Coffee, Tetley’s, Typhoo, PG Tips Tea, and Cadburys and Van Houten Chocolate are among the market leaders.  However many of the non branded products are equally as popular and represent excellent value for money. Colombian Coffee, for example is widely used and appreciated.

Fully Automatic machines do exactly what you would expect. You put in your money, press a button, or key in a number…and the machine does the rest. The main product (Coffee or Tea, for example) is dispensed by means of an augur into a mixing bowl, where water is added, the secondary products (Whitener and Sugar, if required) and a disposable cup are also dispensed and the whole drink is the served in a few seconds. Obviously, not all fully automatic machines are coin operated.

 Many work on a free-vend basis (in other words the user has free access to the machine). Some machines have cashless systems installed, whereby the user may only dispense a drink after first having inserted a card, key or tag. I will go into a little more detail about cashless systems later.

There is a lot of nonsense talked about fully automatic machines. Some sales people will tell you that one machine, costing perhaps almost twice as much as another, will do the same thing. In other words, produce a cup of coffee or tea. In some respects they may have a point, but only in the sense that a Jaguar could be said to do the same thing as a Mini, inasmuch as both will get you from A to B!

Trust your common-sense. If there is such a vast price difference, there must be a reason.