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.
Sometimes those vending machines are very unsanitary and would not pass health regulations here in the US.
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.
It’s a shame too because automats used to be a great way for urban poor to get low cost food. I know a vending machine isn’t the same as an automat but they are similar and would be treated similarly.
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.
Southeasterner here. That’s changed.
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 always assumed nobody buys that crap except for one town’s whale
I can’t tell if this is satirical.
My company has a vending machine for computer accessories. For example, if you need a replacement mouse, just go over to the machine, wave your badge in front of the sensor, select the mouse, and wait for it to drop
Think about it realistically. Considering just food machines, what foods popular with Americans can realistically be sold out of a vending machine?
Popcorn is a clear winner. It can be made in advance, stored for a while, and then easily dispensed. Its profit margin is high. You can charge two dollars for a bag of popcorn that only cost you twenty cents in ingredients.
Packaged food like potato crisps is also a good idea for the same reason. You don’t even need to keep the vending machine heated. Similarly, cold drinks and ice cream can also be easily dispensed out of a cooled vending machine, although I don’t consider those different from “packaged food”.
But what other American classics are there to consider? Hamburgers are out immediately. They’re too complex to prepare fresh and most people wouldn’t buy a reheated frozen burger.
Hot dogs might be viable, but a machine that sells hot dogs can only see hot dogs due to the mechanical complexity. I think many people would also question the freshness of a vending machine hot dog unless you cooked it right in front of them and let them see it via a glass window. Additionally, a hot dog has a much lower profit margin. If you charge four dollars for a hot dog, it might cost nearly a dollar in ingredients along with the mechanical complexity of the machine. Most people would expect the machine to also dispense condiments like ketchup, mustard, and relish.
Pizza is also complex and would take several minutes to bake from fresh or reheat from frozen. I don’t think people would stand around for several minutes waiting for a machine to heat up pizza. Unless you can get the cooking time under sixty seconds, forget it. Pizza also traditionally baked at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, or 370 degrees Celsius. It’s not an easy to safely install a component that gets that hot in a machine. Pizza that is pre-cooked and kept warm tends to not taste very good.
Fried chicken tenders will lose their crispness over time, even when kept warm. There is no temperature you can keep fried chicken at where it will remain crisp for hours but also not overcook. Hot oil in a machine is a recipe for disaster. French fries are a possible inclusion (the machine in the post sells French fries), but Americans don’t really eat French fries on their own; they are usually served as a side dish along with something else.
Ideally, a machine should be loaded with frozen or pre-cooked food, which it merely keeps warm and dispenses to a buyer when purchased.
Think about Japanese food. Curry, in particular, can be served just barely hot and still delicious. Rice balls can be served refrigerated, as can cold Lawson sandwiches. Instant ramen is also popular, but that’s just packaged food that requires a hot water spigot. I argue that Japanese food in general is just more suitable to be served out of a vending machine.
We have fish bait vending machines with worms in them
When I was stationed at Camp Pendleton around 2003-ish, one of the barracks I was at had a pizza vending machine. It made cheese pizzas (maybe pepperoni too, but I am not sure) that were a little smaller than a frisbee and cost around $5 (at a time when the priciest McDonald’s value meal was almost $5). I never had any myself, but it did take a couple minutes to make and (if I remember correctly) the crust was mostly pre-made. Being able to watch the process (a crust drops onto the conveyor, a robot puts the sauce on, another robot puts the cheese on, another robot puts the toppings on (if any), the pizza is conveyored through the oven) would help occupy the customer’s time. If the crust is pre-made, you’re really just broiling the cheese and toppings to get them melty and hot.
I don’t think the pizza was too tasty or popular, but it was a convenient option if you were drunk.
It’s a lot more complex than an ordinary vending machine though. That increases costs. A curry machine is nothing more than a normal vending machine with a heater. A ramen machine is nothing more than a normal vending machine with a tap for hot water. Adjusted for inflation, the pizza machine would cost $8 for a small pizza. You can buy one from Little Caesar’s for the same price and it’s bigger and probably tastes better as well, since, as cheap at it is, the crust is at least fresh.
I recall reading that part of why Japan has more vending machines and more variety is the ownership model. In the US vending machines are typically run by companies that service them and collect the revenue. But in Japan, they’re typically owned by the shops. So shops are more likely to put a variety of products from their store in the vending machines.
I also suspect a higher incidence of social anxiety increases the demand for them in Japan.
Too much reliance on cars for transportation and commerce built around that. Compared to Japan; we don’t have the opportunity for vending machines except when we are contained to a location without the ability to go to a store that isn’t that “far”. We have a larger scale of living; a half hour drive is normal to us, but a half hour drive for other countries is at the tipping point of finding a place to stay for the night and a vending machine selling a common foodstuff makes sense.
If you were forced to walk everywhere and “corner stores” were infrequent, vending machines would be far more common and worthwhile for owners of those machines.
I’m with you until the last paragraph. Corner stores are all over the place in Japan. It’s fantastic.
That is most likely the right answer.
I’m in Switzerland and we have vending machines (not as cool as the Japanese ones tho) because we walk past them everyday.
They are generally on the pavement near post offices, at train stations and other large public transportation places. For a time there was cigarettes vending machines near bars but I think those are now forbidden.
TBF I also felt Swiss people are much more trustworthy than most.
I even remember having going out for dinner and the person behind the counter asking what we ordered; seems like a lot of restaurant ordering systems don’t keep track of orders because you can trust people being honest when they re-state their order at the counter.
I’m from the Netherlands, also in a very walkable city (Utrecht), and students would vandalise vending machines if they existed!
Trust and respect are some of the core principles in Swiss education and society. There are those well known newspapers stands that always amaze tourists. They are not locked nor monitored but people still pay for the newspaper.
For the restaurants it can be true but most places will know what you had only because the cash register system works like that (like they take the order on a phone that automatically sends everything to the kitchen and till). It’s mostly because all the systems available on the market works like that.
But as everywhere, things are changing for the worse, there’s more and more violence, disrespect etc.
Fun fact, I once had French friends visiting and they saw a field where you can take fruits yourself, weight them and pay the according price. No human supervision, no cameras. They were amazed and told me “In France we wouldn’t pay for the fruits, steal the money box AND the weighting machine”
lol, I only know the selecta ones but I’ll try the wurstaumat next time I’m in the german part of the ruesti.
In the Netherlands Food Automats are still very popular
Looks cool! How is the quality?
Wow. Those words are so wild that my mind just defaulted to thinking the image was AI generated.
I sure can’t wait to get my hands on a speciaaltje kassouffle.
I saw a ramen vending machine when I was there a few weeks ago. Japan is light years ahead of us in so many ways.
We used to. They were called Vendo-mats. They had sandwiches and cakes and all kinds of things. They weren’t exactly vending machines in the sense that things would fall down. The food was behind a little door you’d open after paying. I’m too young to remember what the stuff tasted like, but it seemed pretty good because the food would always have to be put in the machines fresh every day.
the food would always have to be put in the machines fresh every day.
ate from these on a few occasions as a kid, and no, they were not fresh every day. I remember my mom sniffing egg salad sandwiches and throwing half the ones they purchased in the trash at a rest stop. also had them at rest stops in the UK in the late 80s as well. it was not great.
LOL. That was an assumption on my part. Eat at your own risk, huh?
definitely culinary roulette - ‘fast food’ ya know?
Oh, we had something like this in college. The vendor would load up the… well, actually, it was more like a big version of those little coolers you see in the checkout line in grocery stores—the ones with the sodas and stuff in them. Anyway, the vendor would load them up every couple days. It’d have sandwiches, salads, puddings (which were actually really popular), sodas, Gatorade, water, and a bunch of other stuff. If we wanted something, we would just get it out, scan the barcode on the scanner attached to the handle, tap our phones or cards to pay, and be on our way.
as an elder millennial, I can say they were not that great. I enjoyed the novelty though.
The Horn and Hardart automat was an interesting bit of early 20th century Americana.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Horn_%26_Hardart_automat.JPG
Just like the cake machines in the TVA break rooms!
CANNED BREAD
Since you mentioned it, I’m obligated to link this clip.
It replaces workers with robots so it would probably save money too.
And now the workers cannot afford bread.
Next move?
¥380 for yaki onigiri. That better not just be for one
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.
I just loved the beer vending machines. Not as much as I would have as a teenager that looked 20 something but that’s why we can’t have nice things here
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 vending machine is serving good that comes out already heated/ at the very least warmed. It’s not just bags of chips
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.
OK, hot food seems a fine reason to be excited
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 .
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.
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
