Although the three Coke machines above may resemble a line of fancy wheelie bins, they are in fact the future of drinks dispensers – the Coca-Cola Freestyle. The Freestyle is a touch-screen dispenser that features 106 different Coca-Cola drink products, and allows you to create your own custom creations from each.
After nearly a year’s product testing in 60+ American locations, lucky U.S fans are gearing up for a deployment of over 500 machines, beginning this month across their nation. So what exactly is the Freestyle, and how can one machine carry over a hundred flavours?
 |
| Hmm… we don’t see any Vanilla Coke there |
With its glowing screen and touch-control interface, the Freestyle has a state of the art appearance, but was originally developed five years ago, under its top-secret code-name Project Jet. Though a slightly extra-fancy drinks dispenser in appearance, the machine addresses a number of Coke-related issues in one fell swoop; namely the shift from carbonated drinks to healthier options, how to lighten the carbon footprint caused from hauling gallons of syrup worldwide each day and ways to achieve accurate, up-to-the-minute customer feedback.
Firstly, the Freestyle can offer carbonated and healthier options together, through its micro dispensing technology. Freestyle’s flavour-dispensing system is inspired by the use of inkjet technology, and quickly can adapt to mixing of any array of flavours. The micro dosing blends one or more concentrated ingredients, when the beverage is dispensed, avoiding the traditional 5g boxes of syrup.
Secondly, the machine uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) to detect supplies and radio for resupplying. RFID is also used to provide Coke with real-time data on which drinks are most popular among customers, to enable the company to decide which products to push forward, scale back, or spot early-emerging soft-drink trends.
The company is hoping Freestyle can top New Coke’s wonky launch in 1985.
Already American customers are mixing and matching the 106 flavours to create their own concoctions, so much so that field-testing found that customers were causing spillage problems by pouring their “taster†drinks down the overspill chute if they were unsatisfied. This issue has been amended, though the other prominent problem users had encountered was initially operating the machine – possibly due to being overwhelmed by the wealth of options at their disposal, or touch-screen technology. Change is never easy, as anyone stuck behind a buffoon in a supermarket self-service section can attest.
Right now the Freestyle should be hitting over 500 locations in the U.S, and if the machine proves to be as big a hit as Coke is expecting, we can look forward to this innovative dispenser hitting our own shores soon. And when it does, we may finally be reunited with our beloved, lesser-spotted Vanilla Coke once more.
You can follow Coca-Cola Freestyle on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Conor Sketches | Tiger Woods loves Ger Loughnane and cosplaying as Charles LeClerc
