Vending machines selling watercress in France
The machine was installed by a 40 year old farmer based in Blessy, Bertrand Bouclet. He and his wife are specialists in organic watercress. ''I had already installed a vending machine in front of my house in October. My sister-in-law owns a beauty salon in Wittes, so I took the opportunity to put one on the piece of land that she owns as well.''
It's not just local watercress that can be found in the machine, Bertrand Bouclet also offers cress soup and pumpkin and cress soup made by a Lille based association. He owns a few chickens so also sells eggs as well as apple juice and apple and raspberry juice from other farms.
A machine such as this would cost the investor about €17,000. ''People want to be able to buy on any day at any time. We are responding to a demand,'' says the cress farmer. Since installing the machine he has noticed that many clients do not come up to the farm, they prefer ''not to bother us and use the machine''.
His aim was not to distance himself from clients, but to create new ones, however it means that he and his wife no longer have the constraint of always having to be around in case there's a client.
Is the produce fresh? The cress farmer tells us that he fills the machine once a day if not twice. The machine is refrigerated so the produce remains fresh for four or five days. He also empties the money from the machine to avoid theft.
Is it a success? It must be otherwise he would not have invested in a second machine. ''In reality it varies. We mainly sell watercress. Sometimes we sell two bundles a day, sometimes twenty."
