The Official French Fries Pages:
French Fry Vending Machines
Life in the modern world
Part of the charm of French Fries is their simplicity. After all, when you get down to basics, just some potatoes and oil will do. But we don't live in that kind of world. We at select ware, inc. are partial to good frozen fries or even take-out fries from some fast food place. It's not that they taste better (although many European chip shops make fantastic French Fries). We're just pretty busy around here and everything's pretty hectic and, well, we just don't have the time and patience to peel and cut our own French Fries as well as cooking them and such.
Call us lazy. Sign o' the times, maybe. But we're certainly not alone. French Fry manufacturing and vending machines are big business. We thought you'd like to know what some of the machines out there look like (because people like a hungry, desperate fry eater send us E-Mail asking things like "Where would one acquire a french fry cutting machine in the deserts of New Mexico?") Not to worry, sandiap. We're still on the case.
Pete Nelson sent us a picture he took in Norway a few years ago of an automatic French Fry vending machine.
Pete explains: The large red door is where it dispenses the fries in a cup slightly larger than a standard styrofoam coffee cup. There is a small change return in the middle, and on the right, underneath "pommes frittes" is small door that dispenses salt and ketchup once it's done. It takes a few minutes per order since they're cooked the spot. There is a panel with some status lights in the upper-left hand corner.
Three and a half minutes is a bit of a wait in front of a vending machine. They probably wouldn't go over very well in New York City, where standing in front of a vending machine for more than 20 seconds makes some cops awfully suspicious.
We're waiting for a picture of the Fry Guys' countertop machine for restaurants and bars and such. Maybe they'll give us an actual machine so that we can put it through the extensive select ware Laboratories testing procedures. We've got insurance, although since 2000 the shipping costs have gone up and our labs now run 220V, not 110V.
UPDATE:
We not only saw a similar French Fry vending machine at JFK airport in New York City in 2001, in yet another airport with such a machine we ran into the maintenance guy who was busy restocking one. He explained how it all worked and let us take pictures. Unfortunately the pictures and notes were lost but as soon as we have another chance, everything will be posted here.
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