Coffee Machines for Factories: Costs and Options Explained

Coffee Machines for Factories: Costs and Options Explained

Being in South Africa, we live in a country where people and physical labour are big driving forces of our economy, and most companies utilise people man power as opposed to machine automation to manufacture their goods. Because, of this factory workers make up a large part of many companies workforces and this often creates a challenge in terms of supplying coffee, milk and sugar. In this post we will talk about the different coffee machines for factories and how companies can use them to create a happy workforce whilst preventing theft and the over use of coffee products.

Turn and Drink Coffee Machines:

About 15 years ago, Click or turn and drink Coffee Machines were the solution to one’s factory coffee problems. The click and drink machine allowed the user to twist the knobs to dispense his/her sugar, milk, coffee and creamer and then simply add hot water. Aromacup

 factory vending machines

The one problem with the turn and drink coffee vending machine was that the user could twist the knob as many times as he or she wished which meant no control of product in terms of usage albeit that the coffee and tea environment was now clean thanks to this dispenser.

Factory Coffee Machine Dispensers of Today:

These days, the old, click and drink coffee machines have been replaced with new shiny automated vending dispensers as shown below:

Bravilor Instant Vending

Despite the fancy looks of these new age vending machines, they are built for rigorous use and can stand up in pretty much any factory or workshop environment.

The three biggest difference between how the machines of today and the old click and drink machines operate are:

  • Speed – Vending machines of today now dispense and mix all the ingredients in the space of 10 seconds. The old click and drink units required the user to turn each individual ingredients knob as many times as required and then add water and then stir. Today’s vending machines perform the mixing and dispensing automatically.
  • Control – The click and drink machines allowed the user to turn the machines knobs as many times as desired. If someone wanted 5 teaspoons of sugar all he/she needed to do was to twist the knob 5 times. Today’s vending machines will only dispense a pre-portioned amount of ingredient thereby controlling costs.
  • Anti-Theft – The filling mechanism of the old dispensing units was simply to lift the lid or unscrew the cap and fill the machine with ingredient. Likewise, if one wanted to take product out the machine, one simply had to reverse the process. All coffee and tea vending machines manufactured today are equipped with a key lock to prevent theft from happening.

Will factory workers break it?

We have placed  coffee and tea vending machines in over 100 factories throughout Southern Africa and have still today have not received one machine back due to abuse or damage. If you happen to have factory employees that are a bit “less gentle” than most, our rental and insurance plans cover any potential damage that might occur.

The Downside of Installing a Coffee/Tea Vending Machine in Your Factory

A vending machine can help a lot to make coffee and tea dispensing a lot easier in ones factory and can also result in a significant cost saving by reducing abuse and theft however coffee vending machines are not always the perfect solution for everyone. Because of the control factors, users are no longer able to control how their drink is made. Users that were previously used to 5 spoons of sugar in their cup, are no longer able to make coffee or tea with anything over the preprogrammed number of sugars which can lead to unhappy staff members. Vending machines also use powder milk to control costs, which also does take sometime to get used to when compared to ordinary liquid milk.