5 Reasons NOT to Purchase or Rent A Coffee Vending Machine

Coffee Vending Machines are still today the most popular choice of coffee machines for office use but vending machines are unfortunately not the right fit for everyone. In this post we will describe the 5 reasons NOT to purchase or rent a coffee vending machine for your office.

Reason #1: You Hate the Taste of Powder Milk

Coffee vending machines come in two varieties namely instant and bean vending. Instant is ones best bet if the intention is to save costs and economy is more important than quality. Bean vending on the other hand gives you the same quality of coffee as one would get from an automatic coffee machine or traditional machine however all milk based coffee drinks are made with powder milk in a vending machine. Powder milk has come a long way from where it used to be and if you use a pure powder milk (100% dehydrated milk) as opposed to a creamer you can get a cappuccino or latte which is 95% of the way there compared to fresh milk cappuccinos. The real purists who can pick up the difference will however notice that 5% and if your intention is only to serve the absolute best then a vending machine (even bean vending machine) might not be the best fit for you.

Reason #2: You Have Limited Space Available

Coffee Vending Machines used to take up a whole block of space and in truth they have gone a heck of a lot smaller but still require some available space. There are essentially two main categories of vending machines : Table Top Coffee Vending Units and Floor standing machines. Floor standing machines do pretty much the same as the table top variety except they are built with a large steel housing which allows for it to be placed on the floor pretty much anywhere. Table top units are a lot more popular due to the massive price difference between them as well as the fact that floor standing, despite taking up a lot more room, don’t offer much more in terms of storage capacity when compared with modern day table-top units. A table top machine typically costs 50% less than the equivalent floor standing machine.

The standard dimensions of table-top coffee vending machines these days are : 40cm x 55 cm x 35 cm (W x H x D).

Reason #3: You Love to Make Coffee the Traditional Way

One of the reasons companies opt for vending machines in the first place is because they want an option where they can simply press one button and have the machine do everything else for them. Automatic coffee machines have come close to emulating vending machines in this type of operation, but still require a bit more work on the users part when it comes to milk based drinks like cappuccinos and lattes. There are still some purists however who prefer to be involved in the whole coffee making process from the grinding to the tamping to the eventual coffee extraction. If you are one of those then it is likely that a vending machine will just not talk to you.

Reason #4: You are Located Outside of a Coffee Vending Machine Servicing Area

As with most appliance purchases, servicing and maintenance, is often only an afterthought when a machine breaks down. Coffee machines, especially the vending type, contains lots of components and with a number of components comes the potential for things to go wrong. For this reason you want to make sure that there is a servicing agent in or near your area so that your machine can be properly serviced and maintained to ensure a long and healthy life for it. Even if your coffee machine performs well and doesn’t break down, you will be doing yourself a big disservice if you ignore the routing service check ups which a coffee machine requires.

Reason #5: You Want a Coffee Machine for Your House

We see more and more smaller companies (companies of about 10 people) wanting to rent or buy a coffee vending machine and because vending machines.  Vending machines used to only be viable for offices of 50+ people but since the prices have dropped dramatically over the years (vending machines now rent for around R900 per month), the market has opened up for smaller companies. Coffee Vending Machines however are still probably not the best option for homes or very small offices as smaller machines, like capsule or automatic machines, will be a far cheaper bet.

Who Should NOT Rent or Purchase a Coffee Vending Machine? Overview:

Coffee Vending Machines are a great fit for a number of environments from offices to reception areas etc. There are however a number of instances or reasons why a vending machine might not be the best fit for you. To find out if a coffee vending machine will be right for you, please complete your details below or try a machine for a month to find out first hand.