Nespresso: just all George Clooney and queues in BT?
05.02.10
It’s a joy to handle but can the Nespresso survive a debunking in favour of the messy old coffee machine? writes ORNA MULCAHY
I’M IN a recession-free zone, standing in a queue watching George Clooney walk up the wide white steps to heaven. Earlier, a piano had fallen on his head but, at the top of the steps, he strikes a deal with St Peter – handing over his Nespresso coffee in return for another go at life. Next thing he’s back where he started, flirting with a woman over an espresso with a head on it like a pint of Guinness. It’s cute. Very watchable and it helps to pass the time in the queue at the Nespresso boutique in Brown Thomas, past pots and pans on the third floor. It’s the only queue going, one person ahead and three behind, the rest of the sales floor like the wide open plains of Wyoming.
My turn, eventually, to explain that a friend has run out of coffee capsules, I’d like to buy her some, but am not sure what she likes. No problem. By tapping away at her screen for a while the sales assistant can tell me, in complete confidence of course. “This one, and this one . . . and a leetle bit of that one,” she says, pointing to the long thin black boxes of capsules that are arranged under glass, like precious artefacts. “She likes very much the Arpeggio,” she adds, making me think that I would probably like it very much too. While paying, I gabble on about maybe one day buying my own Nespresso machine, and that’s it. Game over. They happen to be having a sale, and 10 minutes later the lady has sold me the whole shebang so skilfully I don’t mind heading back to the office like a pack donkey.
Source: Irish Times
Vending machine food: just a touch-screen away
04.02.10
"We're obviously interested in food safety and nutrition," says Ned Monroe, NAMA'S senior vice president of government affairs. "But our biggest issue right now is jobs." This is because the National Automated Merchandising Association is the trade group for vending machines. And when unemployment gets high, Monroe says, "there are fewer workers available to buy snacks."
Snacks. The mini-foods that we graze on throughout the day, a nation of cows moving from one 100-calorie snack pack to another. One hundred million Americans use 7 million vending machines every day, according to NAMA, and always with a panicky sense of trepidation. Will the Baked Lay's bag fall this time? you wonder. And only a fool would mess with B5, which hasn't dispensed a Snickers in years. Why can't they put the cheese crackers on B5 instead? Nobody likes those.
The vending industry is a $30 billion-a-year industry, completely embedded in our daily lives. To make sure that legislators don't forget that, NAMA set up a Coffee and Vending Innovation Showcase in the Cannon House Office Building's grandiose Caucus Room. There, against a backdrop of Corinthian pilasters and elaborate molding, are rows of vending machines, all representing the very latest in snack technology.
Source: Washington Post