BOTTLED BEER SALES

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29268, 28 July 1960, Page 20

BOTTLED BEER SALES

Dispensing Machine Given Hotel Trial A , bottled beer-dispensing machine invented and patented by a Christchurch man, Mr T. E. Edlin, is now being given a trial in a suburban hotel. Perfected a month or so ago, the machine was not given a public trial until after the Budget in case the price of beer was altered and a modification of the change mechanism made necessary. The machine takes half a crown. The insertion of the coin releases one bottle from the cabinet, which holds seven and a half dozen bottles, and the taking of the bottle release; the appropriate change. Saturday customers of the hotel experimented with the machine throughout the day and made greater use of it in the few minutes before 6 o’clock, when there was a big demand for takehome supplies. But Mr Edlin thinks it will be at least a week before the novelty wears off, and the public becomes accustomed to machine sales and show/ the full value of the machine. Mr Edlin, who is the designer of milk-vending machines for use in factories, is now working on another bottle-dispensing machine on the same principle. He is preparing 200 cabinets to sell a soft drink. The mechanism is simpler, as the price of the bottles is 6d and the machine is not required to give change, but refrigeration units are being built into the cabinets.