In a world wrapped up in complex supply chains, small farmers are in a catch-22: sell to the supermarkets and get less cash for your carrots, or spend a lot more time and effort trying to sell directly to customers. Consumers, meanwhile, are torn between loyalty to local businesses and the convenience of those established supply chains. Now a German farm, Peter-und-Paul-Hof, has found a solution in the form of... vending machines. The result of a collaboration between the farm and vending manufacturer Stuewer, the specially designed Regiomat machines currently sell fresh milk, eggs, butter, cheese, potatoes and sausage in thirteen German towns and communities.
It's not a solution that sprung up overnight. Initially, Peter-und-Paul-Hof were operating a service delivering milk to their customers. Finding this too time-consuming, they began encouraging customers to collect the milk from fridges on their farm, which proved successful and inspired them to use vending machines as a more versatile solution. The Regiomat machines can be placed outdoors 365 days a year as long as they're under a roof (some have even been placed alongside hiking trails in Switzerland), effectively giving locals a 24-hour farmers' market and farmers a lot more free time. By cutting out the middleman, this system also offers potential savings over retail stores. An update to the traditional farm stand that is beneficial to both farmers and local-loving consumers, this is definitely a concept we can see spreading to other parts of the world. (Related: Vending machines for healthy food.)
Website: www.stuewer.de/automaten/regiomat/index.html — www.peter-paul-hof.de
Contact: automaten@stuewer.de
Spotted by: Franziska Luh
Very nice! Inspiring, too. I'd love to see the same thing happen to more small farmers so they'd get their deserved return for their hard work.
Don't know how long this has been around in Germany but it's been around for years in Japan. Just the next stop on from the unmanned stall which relies on customers' honesty to leave money. Great idea.
I was going to say the same about Japan. There's a ton of the machines selling fresh vegetables here in Setagaya-ku in Tokyo. Although they are not be as sophisticated as the machines in your story.
Photo of Japanese school-locker-turned-vending-machine:
http://tokyostories.pnn.com/articles/show/15401-vegetables-grow-on-thieves
Fantastic idea...
in Liempde (Boxtel/Netherlands) farmers have their own 'tomattoMat' and 'egg-o-mat' for several years now...
It is a quite good idea.Probably,it may become even common in real world in 20years.However,in my opinion,I would buy the product based on I touch it.It might realistic for cosumers
I'm in Singapore and we have vending machines for fresh fruit. It's nothing new!
this information very nice for vending machines.
Hello, for years I've told people of the apple machines at my college in the 1960's.Most people can't imagine such a thing, today.The apples were very fresh, and possibly cold-can't recall. but were very popular. Of course today's junk was not as available at that time. My husband and I realy enjoyed them, and can't understand why they are not in use today..any comments on that? Thanks, Freda Hogan