Vending Machine Chips

Picture yourself. You're two thirds of the way through a journey in deepest, darkest north Norfolk. You're tired. The train leaving London was packed solid due to the fact that it's the first train out of London that allows Saver tickets. So when you arrive at Norwich station and see a chip vending machine, you just have to give it a go!

There are very few things that I know about vending machines, but chief among them is that the contents tend to be pre-packaged. So that's cans and packets. You also have your drink dispensers which basically work by adding hot water to a variety of powders to lesser or greater success. But chips is a whole other proposition. The machine, filled supplied by McCains, is supposedly filled with non-oil cooked chips. Instead hot air seems to be the method of heating the food up. Images of hairdryers pointed at oven-chips came to mind.

The machine's probably been there ages, but I'd certainly never noticed it before.

Anyway, I inserted my pound and waited. As advertised, you got a 45 second countdown as they were prepared. Then you wait for the red light at the bottom to stop flashing before you remove the cup. The red light dutifully flashed before stopping, and I warily looked for a cup. None was to be seen. Then I saw the bottom of a cup in the roof of the dispenser. As I pulled, loads of chips jammed in with the cup came through as well. The cup itself was three cups together, and inside were something like six or seven individual chips at the bottom of the cup, none of which seemed to have been especially heated through.

A pound wasted, and my suspicions about the possibilities of a chip vending machine remain well-founded.

I had a look around to see if anyone else has had some experience with these machines. He
re's a blogger who seemed happy enough with her experiences, and that was back in 2003. Someon
e else mentions satisfaction in passing.

This cached page from 1997 (!) suggests that the machine is that old and has won awards! And apparently there are also Pizza
dispensers...