Blog - Intelligent Vending Ltd

Astro Systems

New Products Alert! New Product Alert!

Just a quick post to let you know that new products have been added to the website, we now stock Astro Systems GBA ST1 and GBA ST2 Note Readers. These are state of the art note readers. We will be adding more, new and innovative products from Astro Systems in the coming days so keep your eyes peeled!

Happy Friday

-Saskia

Posted in: Intelligent Vending Ltd, Product News
Tags: astro systems, Intelligent Vending, new products, note readers

Pay with potatoes!

Lays Crisps (Walkers in the UK) have introduced a new promotional machine to show how fresh and pure their crisps really are. Instead of paying with spare change, consumers are asked to put a whole potato into the vending machine and then watch as it is washed, peeled, sliced and fried to be turned into the ready salted crisps they know and love, quite the contrast to last weeks post about free crisps when the recession is mentioned!

This is a digital video, but gives a great insight into how the machine will work and could potentially brighten up snack time, especially as it shows the whole process of getting a bag of crisps, right from real potato, to being sealed into their bag for freshness.

Lays Vending Machine

Here at Intelligent Vending, we think this is a fab machine, exciting to watch and also serves as a reminder as to where food actually comes from, the act of putting in a real, possibly field-muddy potato brings the bag of crisps back to earth, especially for children who are perhaps so used to eating from a packet that they wouldn’t even know that crisps are made from potatoes grown in muddy fields.

Posted in: Customised Vending, Public Vending, Vending Machine News, Vending Overseas
Tags: crisps, Innovation, Lays, vending machines, Walkers

Contactless at the Olympics

As part of Coca-Cola’s high profile sponsorship of the 2012 Olympic games in London, they are currently in talks to bring contactless technology to their vending machines at the event. Coke are currently liaising with Visa to integrate the technology within their machines in time for the Olympics with the hope that this will turn the games into the biggest contactless event ever! Meanwhile, mobile phone giant Samsung are also in talks with Coca-Cola and Visa to use Near Field Communication-ready handsets at the event, allowing consumers to simply hold their mobile phone to the contactless machine to pay for their bottle of Coke. James Eadie, head of Olympics at Coca-Cola GB, has been quoted as saying “The technology is already available today and we are in conversation with Visa over the Olympic Park and how it would work.”

This is an exciting time for the future of Vending machines and here at Intelligent Vending Ltd we will be keeping a close eye on how Coca-Cola proceed with contactless payments at the Olympic Games.

How do you feel about contactless payments? Would you like to be able to use your mobile phone to pay for a drink out of a vending machine when in a rush to get from the long jump to the 100 meter final?!

Posted in: Intelligent Vending Ltd, Vending Machine News
Tags: coke, contactless, olympics

Game while you guzzle?

Coca-Cola in Japan is modifying many of its vending machines to make them far more interactive with users. This is the next stage in Coca-Cola’s ‘Happiness’ campaign and will promote  brand loyalty for Coke customers.  The addition of QR codes onto machines mean that customers can interactive with the machine and create it a virtual identity, allowing customers to think of a machine they frequently visit as “my machine.”

Checking in at the machine will earn users badges and points, which can be spent customising “their” machine with things like skins, shoes and backgrounds.  The more a customer interacts with a machine, the more personalised its response will be, sending information such as brand updates and news and weather. Also available will be a badge to show that a user has visited machines through out the country – not an easy feat at all, but one no doubt hardcore game and Coke fans will be excited to try and achieve!

Registration for the so-called “Happiness Quest” opens next week, with an added promotional incentive – a one million yen prize which is sure to make it very popular.

This is sure to be a success for Coca-Cola if not just by their sheer presence in the vending world in Japan – by the end of March 2012, they are hoping to have 820,000 machines with QR codes on- but because everyone loves a game, and rather than tweeting “I’m using a vending machine” customers can now scan the QR code and play a quick game as they wait for the bottle of coke to vend. Exciting stuff!

Posted in: Product News, Vending Machine News, Vending Overseas
Tags: coca-cola, japan, qr codes, vending

Happy Hour

The Arnold Ad agency in Boston have come up with a delightful way to brighten up their staffs day!

Introducing Arnie, a beer vending machine with a smart, touchscreen interface loaded with an “Alepedia” to give users more information to his customers. Staff have been provided with a fob loaded with credits to allow several free beers a month, which can also be topped up with their own credit should a party break out in the lunch room! The fobs recognise who is using the machine, allowing for a person experiance where Arnie talks them thorugh and explains how to get a cold one!

Of course, no innovation nowadays is free from social media, so Arnie is equiped with what else- his own twitter feed (@arniebeer) where he can tweet his thoughts – generally either begging for company when he hasn’t had many visitors or warning that a party is about to happen once he has sold a few beers that hour! Arnie also retweets mentions from staff to show they are happy. It is also possible for users to tweet directly from the machine to express their delight in popping the cap of nice cool beer!

Arnie was the product of an internal $100,000 initiative called “the Make project” where staff came up with their own ideas of how to improve productivity and happiness within the office. Launched earlier in the month, from the looks of Arnies twitter feed it appears staff seem happy, quite how productive they will be with a 24hour free bar in the office I don’t know!

Arnie currently dispensers 6 different varieties of beer, including his own “Arnold Pilsner” and their are plans to extend the range to include seasonal beer. picture from psfk.com

If you would be interested in a similar machine for your office or function do not hesitate to get in touch with us here at Intelligent Vending Ltd and we will see what we can do for you!

- Saskia

Posted in: Customised Vending, Vending Machine News
Tags: alcohol, beer, drinks vending, vending

There’s no such thing as a free meal…

An artist from Plymouth College of Art, Ellie Harrison, has created an installation names “vending machine.” This, however is not your typical vender, OH NO! Here, you are not given the option of what flavour crisps you would like, nor which spiral you would like them to fall from. You are not even given the chance to pay. Harrison’s installation is instead linked to a computer, and a big screen. The computer feeds the vending machine information directly from the BBC’s RSS feed, and when the word “recession,” or anything recession-related is fed through, BOOM, free crisps! This is where the big screen comes in, as 1ft high letters on the screen announce “FREE FOOD” with the theory that students and visitors to the college will then go running to the installation room.

After a successful run in Plymouth, the installation and it’s sister project- a child’s mechanical car which runs on the same principal- have moved around the country, it’s latest incarnation was at Intelligent Vending Ltd’s local gallery- QUAD Derby, hence it coming to our attention. Vending Machine and the exhibition it is a part of, the Ha Ha Road, is said to be a chance to look at the funny side of life that often gets forgotten with the hard slog of real life. Although appearing as an act of generosity, and could brighten up a customers day, the machine also hints towards a dystopian view of society when eventually we may not have the option of food on demand and is instead controlled by political or environmental events.

We here at Intelligent Vending Ltd, however are choosing to view the installation as a nice way to brighten someones day during the doom and gloom of current economic times. We applaud Harrison’s work on this project although we don’t think that free vending due to what is on the news is something our customers are going to take on anytime in the near future!

- Saskia

Posted in: Customised Vending, Intelligent Vending Ltd, Public Vending, Vending Machine News
Tags: art, crisps, derby, vending

French bread fresh from the vend!

A baker in France has come up with the ingenious idea that he can stock a vending machine with par-baked bread, which once selected is baked in an in-machine oven and delivered to the customer. Featuring a touch pad front plate, the machine promises to at least attempt to stave off France’s hunger pangs for bread in the middle of the night when traditional bakeries are close in a very simple way.

Due to french law, which says you cannot put preservatives into the nations favourite food, french baker Jean-Louis Hecht realised he could stock part baked bread – which stays fresh for up to 3 days – ready to be cooked when customers ordered it from the machine, allowing for fresh bread to be available 24 hours a day.

Hecht is planning on rolling these machines out across France, not to rival traditional bakeries but to compliment them, as he says “bakeries will have to adapt or die” in the current economic climate.

If you’re in France, or planning on visiting soon, keep an eye out for these new machines, which will no doubt be complimented by and installed alongside the wine vending machine we blogged about here!

Posted in: Customised Vending, Public Vending, Vending Machine News, Vending Overseas
Tags: bread, france, vending, wine

Home Made Vending

How about this for innovation?! A cat food/treat vending machine that allows your pet to use its initiative to solve the puzzle of how to get fed! The machine is essentially a large cake box, an empty water bottle and an inside mechanism, held together with sellotape! Here at Intelligent Vending we think this an amusing way of letting your cat fend for itself, without having the chance of waking up to little ‘friends’ they have brought in during a long night hunting!

Link to the original blog post: cat food home vending

Posted in: Customised Vending
Tags: cat, catfood, treat vending

Squeaky Clean

More new products added to the website this morning!

A wide range of Brightwell dispensers and bins from the Modular and Mercury ranges are now availible from Intelligent Vending Ltd, perfect for any style of washroom. Foam, liquid and spray soap dispensers, refillable or with a pouch are available, alongside stylish Mercury wall mounted or floor standing bins, and toilet tissue and hand towel dispensers.

The Mercury range is super sleek and stylish to add an up market touch to your washroom, while the Modular range is durable and easy to fill for your ease and convenience.

Posted in: Intelligent Vending Ltd, Product News
Tags: dispensers, soap, washroom

NRI Coin Changers Now Added!

NRI Coin Changers Now Added!

A full range of NRI c2 currenza blue coin changers and accessories for vending machines have now been added to our website.

These include standard MDB, dual protocol MDB/Exec, and USB coin changer models. We have also included the higher specification Airport c2 currenza coin mechs which enable EVA-DTS data to be remotely polled in seconds from your vending machines to your back-office PC (via the USB Airbox). A wide range of data can be polled using this system including total sales, total number of sales per selection, and cash in the machine to name but a few! The Airport system also offers the functionality of SMS alarms being sent directly to a designated mobile number in case of machine fault.

Smart management and reports of vending data is definitely the way forward… The Airport system offers comprehensive data for minimal additional outlay – a must for any vending operator!

Posted in: Intelligent Vending Ltd
Tags: airport coin changers, coin changers, new products