Froobee Drink: Vending Machine Mixed, Packaged & Dispensed

A UK company is developing a range of vending and packaging machines that will mix, package and dispense liquid-based products like fruit drinks quickly and “inexpensively” on-demand, in resealable capped, spouted flexible pouches supplied on-the-reel.

Md of Crawley-based WaterWerkz Adam Green got the idea for the PouchLink system after seeing street vendors in India selling water in plastic bags. He says the system offers a more efficient, eco-friendly and cost-effective method of vending soft drinks than “traditional” vending machines. After leaving a City job he founded WaterWerkz with Steven Jenkins, who has 27 years' vending experience, Ballygowan Spring Water founder Geoff Read, and hardware and software designer Steve Douglas.

In the past three years the team has worked with several project partners, including top vending machine manufacturer, Vendo Sanden, out-of-home drinks dispense specialist IMI Cornelius, and several pouchmakers, to perfect what Green believes is the world's first drinks vending system able to mix and fill drinks on-demand in the machine using a combination of mains-supplied filtered water, bag-in box concentrates, and spouted and capped flexible pouches supplied on the reel delivered via a micro-pneumatic pouch handling system. The latter component is currently supplied to Vendo Sanden's Italian factory for incorporation into a new vending machine, the PouchLink PL1.

Green elaborates: “Perfecting the interconnected pouch system at the system's heart required extensive r&d; we believe the system is a world first.”

When the user selects their drink the micro-pneumatic system detaches a pouch, mixes water with a syrup or fruit concentrate, and then fills and caps the pouch before dispensing. WaterWerkz says the reduction in transportation of bulk water content means the new drinks will boast a very low “food mile”. As pouches can be supplied in continuous chains of several thousand, re-loading times are also substantially cut.”

PostPack (WaterWerkz's name for systems using its patented PouchLink pouches) units can hold 2,000 pouches of various capacities. Among the first users, in the next quarter, will be Nestlé, for a new fruit juice, Jusante, and UK adult soft drinks manufacturer, Bottlegreen Drinks, for four post-mix fruit cordials.

Green says: “Our aim now is to get out and identify the many other drinks producers we believe can benefit from this exciting new system.”

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Drinks vending machines can form pouches on demand (Packaging Today)