with supply and demand and all… IM DEMANDING CANNED BREAD!! where’s the supply 🥺?
It replaces workers with robots so it would probably save money too.
Costs
We used to have cigarette vending machines here, but nooo, all the people worried about not dying of preventable diseases had to go and ruin the fun.
Where I am in Canada we have personal pizza machines, coin-op skate sharpening and once I saw a french fries/onion rings one. Coffee vending machines used to be a thing but I think K Cups kind of took that over
In the USA they lack the population density pressure to make it the most optimal solution of serving food, and the startup costs don’t justify changing from human labor to fully automated food sales. Also I bet the quality isn’t as good as you think it is from some preserved fried food wrapped in plastic.
Japan loves wrapping everything in plastic. They and the US were the only ones not to sign a promise reduce plastic usage. For all the appearances of Japan being eco conscious, they have this one big issue.
deleted by creator
In the Netherlands Food Automats are still very popular
In France they have this:
We have this:
and this:
Japan has a lot of drink vending machines, but relatively few food or candy vending machines. This is actually an area where the United States performs strongly. That being said, Japan has a real number of strange vending machines.
Americans would just crush themselves to death on them
cuz nobody likes eating out of plastic containers in the United States. these vending machines are full of extremely processed garbage taste like shit and produces a shitload of plastic garbage, waste garbage crap. I like Japan.
Have you ever seen the frozen food section of a grocery store?
I can’t tell if this is satirical.
Is this cool because it has Japan signs? Has it any more features than US machines? Or US has no vending machines at all?
There are vending machines but they generally don’t serve hot food or nearly the same amount of variety as Japanese machines do. Usually only soft drinks and shelf-stable snacks like candy bars, chips, cookies or crackers.
The US could have more hot drink vending machines, but I think the sort of clientele that wants a hot coffee wants it to be highly customized like the shit you get at Star Bucks. Highly customized, burnt coffee.
I think you underestimate how many Americans just want a cup of Joe with cream and sugar. A whole lot of us are out there drinking gas station/convenience store coffee or brewing a cup or pot every day of store brand pre-ground.
And the ongoing joke about people getting frustrated with just wanting a “large coffee” and being confused by starbucks calling it a “venti” and spouting off about how they don’t want any fru-fru mocha-chino late bullshit even though no one asked.
I think the bigger issue is that of how Americans get around and how available real estate is.
Japan has a lot more people who can/will walk, take the train, etc. that’s a lot more opportunities for them to walk by a vending machine.
Americans tend to get around in our cars, so if you want to sell them a coffee, snacks, hot meal, etc. they need to be able to park somewhere.
And vending machine food isn’t exactly a huge draw, people probably aren’t going to go to your parking lot with a row of vending machines just to grab something to eat, so you kind of need something else to draw them in, some bathrooms, gas pumps, or at least convenient parking to other stuff they need to get to, so you might as well stick a gas station there, and since you’re going to need a cashier you might as well move that vending inside and you can get more and more variety of merchandise on shelves that you can cram into some vending machines so it might as well just be a convenience store.
This looks like it’s serving hot food. US vending machines only have cold or room temp packaged stuff. They’re very basic. The range of machines in Japan is seemingly endless, and many of them are far more complex machine wise than what we typically have here.
This is not exactly accurate. There are vending machines in the states which produce full cooked products. I’ve mostly only seen them in Airports ,and they generally cost more than a comparable meal at an actual airport restaurant .
And to be fair, didn’t we invent the Automat? Basically a giant vending machine general store in, like, the 50’s? I’d love to see one of those. They sounded rad.
Those automats had a fully staffed kitchen behind them, cooking and placing the food in slots to be bought
Yeah. There are vending machines that will cook you a pizza. It just turns out there isn’t that high a demand for vending machine pizza.
This vending machine is serving good that comes out already heated/ at the very least warmed. It’s not just bags of chips
Factories I’ve worked at had vending machines filled with microwavable food (burritos, burgers, sandwiches, etc). All of it was pretty disgusting.
Reminds me of when I had a summer job in a Steel Mill. Two hotdogs for a dollar from a vending machine (AVI). I’d eat that almost every day.
Exactly.
My thought when opening the post was basically, “Can you imagine the depths that American corporations would sink to in a market where they can totally conceal the flavor, size, quality, etc. of their products until after the sale, and not have anyone from the company present, making them totally immune to any negative feedback?”
Presumably the companies behind these things in Japan are at least delivering a somewhat acceptable food item. I wouldn’t be surprised in any way to find an American version of this thing dispensing literal dead rats.
My experience here. Had one a place I worked which did breakfast foods (yogurt, breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos , etc) with a small microwave slot to heat up after it vended. Food was absolutely gross and it was always dicey if anything it vended was still in date. Only nice thing was the front was see through so you could check which items had visible mold and avoid those…
Was cheaper than the cafe and had better hours (all of them) for my shift, but I don’t think the trade off of rolling the dice on food poisoning was worth it lol.
Japan can have more vending machines, because their culture raises people in a way that they have less vandalism and the companies take more responsibility for problems with vending.
I’m in France. There is a gas station near me with three vending machines : drinks, pizzas, and CBD.
The pizza one is mostly fine. The grid protecting the screen was torn apart. Tbf it was annoying. The drinks one is damaged, and is now protected by a metal cage. The CBD machine is completely destroyed.
All publicly available objects in France end up like this.
I thought you were going to say that their culture is more insular and less sociable, because that would be a better explanation than the popularity of vending machines.
Somehow related. There is a Japanese anime where the protagonist is a human that reborns as a vending machine.
Been watching it. It’s fucking wacky
People in the US don’t respect others property. Look at any atm machine or vending machine. There’s no way these things wouldn’t be vandalized immediately.
This is the answer. Japan has a lot of respect for others (well, for other japanese at least), so these types of machines will last a lot longer; making the payoff more palatable.
Place a vending machine outside in America, and it’ll be vandalized in a week max.
Even in highly walkable cities, you don’t see vending machines. It has nothing to do with cars, it has to do with the culture of the US being one of disrespect most of the time.
Vending machines in the USA are common, but they are typically attached to an existing business. For instance, a Walmart or gas station will commonly host several machines in its entrance area.
Vandalize? … the entire machine would be stolen. Either by thieves wanting to steal the merchandise or money or both. Or a bunch of teens that would tie a chain to it and drag it to the end of town for fun.
Completely this. Americans don’t like letting other people have nice things. A vending machine would be vandalized, filled with glue as a TikTok prank, attempted to be stolen, and stop working within a few days.
Americans don’t really give a shit about other people. We’re more individualistic. You got yours? Good. Fuck everyone else. If we have to have protests and fundraising efforts to TRY to convince people to help others – we got a long way to go.
Japan is built on respect for your fellow man. You can leave your wallet out somewhere and someone would return it immediately.
Respect for your fellow Japanese man. They have a long way to go in the xenophobia angle.
Americans often don’t respect other Americans, NOR other countries. We also know xenophobia/racism well.
Respect for others property might follow respect for others but that’s not a popular concept in America
When I visited california, there was a mall with multiple vending machines like the one in the OP for various foods and icecreams.
Bet it was inside the mall, with a camera watching it. Japanese vending machines like the one mentioned can be just outside nbd.
They were in the hallways, not out on the street. I didn’t look for any cameras, but there wasn’t any security nearby that would’ve seen anyone vandalize them. If there were cameras, I can’t imagine it mean much to people wearing a mask.
I’m not saying vandalism isn’t more common in the US, I’m sure it is in compared to hyper-respectful Japan, but I don’t think it’s absolutely impossible to have these.
Growing up in the south eastern US vending machines were a common sight in a number of public spaces, and they were completely fine. No idea what third-world parts of the country the rest of these people grew up in.
