Okinawa-rama

Keeping current on the Japanese vending machine revolution
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joe D. Haines, Okinawa Marine, 07 July 06

In Japan, vending machines can be found on practically every street corner and often in places without any street corners. According to the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers Association, there are about 5.5 million vending machines in Japan. About half of these machines dispense soft drinks. But we’re not talking about your standard half-dozen Pepsi or Coca Cola products.
Each Japanese machine contains 30-40 separate products, on average, offering a bewildering array of hot and cold coffee, tea, chocolate, fruit juices, and nutritional supplements in addition to the standard soda pop products. Yes, you read cor­rectly, hot coffee in a can, a truly marvel­ous invention for caffeine addicts!
And Starbucks has nothing on Japa­nese canned coffee — there’s espresso, black coffee, coffee with cream and sugar, cappuccino, café-au-lait and even diet coffee. Popular brands include Kilimanjaro, Georgia and my favorite, Dy-do. In addition, there’s no better hand warmer on a cold day than a hot can of coffee.
The different teas in both bottles and cans are simply too numerous to men­tion, but the Royal Milk Tea is especially flavorful. And wonder of wonders, there are even vending machines that dispense cold beer! What a country! Veteran humorist Dave Barry wrote in praise of this Japanese innovation. Ac­cording to Dave’s exhaustive research, Suntory Beer was the superior offering, partly because he liked its slogan, “Inex­plicably Delicious.” My personal favorite is that unpretentious Okinawan brew, Orion Beer, known simply as, “The Beer of Beers.”
But before American teenaged boys begin saving money for a flight to Japan, the old machines that sell alcohol are being replaced with models that check a customer’s age by scanning IDs. In 2008, cigarette vending machines will likewise be equipped with an age verifi­cation data card reader.
A Tokyo ocean ferry company has a vending machine that routinely sells out its 120 servings of frozen sushi topped with deep-water shrimp, tuna and scal­lops for ¥500 a serving. A special oven that thaws the frozen meal heats the rice and vinegar while the fish topping remains cold. Some critics of vending machines object that it promotes a culture of disposability. But in Japan, new vending machines often have a humanitarian side. Beginning in 2003, Coca Cola of Japan installed machines that can be remotely controlled to provide free drinks to disaster victims. The possibilities for vending machine products are limited only by the Japanese imagination. There are machines that dispense anything from batteries to underwear. The underwear idea undoubtedly came from those mothers who warned their children about turning up in the emergency room with disreputable undergarments. Fuji Electric Retail System has developed a makeup vending machine that not only talks to customers, but has a camera to help girls make their selection.
The machine then provides the image of the customer’s face showing how she’d look with the new makeup job. If makeup machines ever make it to America, teenaged girls will be responsible for the next billion dollar industry.
Haines is a family practice physician at Lester Family Medicine Clinic.