Upmarket frozen meals retailer and supplier Cook is trialling vending machines in railway stations for the first time.
As part of a deal with Southeastern and Decorum, Cook has installed vending machines at Orpington and Bromley South stations, which have been live since last month.
“Both had a retail space that had been empty for some time, next to the ticket barriers,” Ben Scott, head of vending & catering at Cook, told The Grocer. “We’re hoping to catch commuters as they come off the train with the ‘what’s for dinner?’ question burning in their minds. Once they clock our vending machine is there, we hope it becomes a convenient habit that keeps them away from the takeaways and delivery services.”
The retailer launched vending machines for its frozen ready meals last year, with a plan to roll out the machines in office spaces, residential schemes, hospitals, travel hubs and educational institutions – “helping to fuel a better-fed and better-performing workforce”.
The company now has 17 machines operational – including in the offices of travel brand Holiday Extras – and plans to have an additional 10 installed in hospitals by the summer. By the end of the year the ambition is to have up to 40 additional machines in operation.
“The focus remains very much on the opportunities in hospitals, where the provision of tasty, nourishing meals for staff and visitors tends to be very poor, particularly when on-site restaurants are shut; and also offices or other workplaces operating 24/7, again, where out-of-hours catering often doesn’t exist,” Scott added.
Scott said usage of the live machines was split evenly between people buying to eat on site and those taking meals to cook at home.
“A frozen meal vending machine is a new concept and we’ve found it takes a little while for people to get their heads around it,” he said. “But once people start using the machines, the sales volumes grow steadily. We’re regularly hitting the required 10-20 meals a day in some locations to make the commercial model stack up.
“Our simple objective in year one has been to prove Cook Vending can work. This means sufficient demand for machines and sufficient vending sales to meet the minimum requirements for both Cook and our partners. With three months to go, we have already met this objective,” Scott added.
The bestselling products to date in railway stations have been King Prawn Linguine and Lasagne Al Forno. “The latter is an oven-cook only dish, which is interesting as it shows customers are willing to get home and wait for a dish that takes longer to cook,” Scott said.
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