A Parisian butcher has come up with a novel way of satisfying consumers’ meat cravings, with the installation of a 24-hour refrigerated vending machine.
Set up outside the butcher’s shop in Paris’ 11th arrondissement, the machine offers consumers products such as sirloin steak, pork chops, sausages, Bayonne ham, beef carpaccio and even chicken and eggs.
It has cost the shop around £10,000 to install and keeps the meat, vacuum packed in-store by the butcher, refrigerated until the time of dispense. According to British newspaper The Telegraph, a 250g pack of sirloin steak costs €8.50, while two pork chops are €5.
Its introduction follows the launch of similar vending machines for baguettes and cheeses, as well as other vending machines for meat products in parts of rural France, which are designed to bypass the country’s restrictions on Sunday trading.
“The vending machine offers a selection of our products which we prepare and vacuum-pack ourselves,” Florence Pouzol, owner of the L’Ami Txulette boucherie, told The Telegraph. “We wanted to give our customers an additional service when the shop is closed.”
François Joly, who lives near the machine, said: “At first you think it’s strange, but then you realise it might be a good way to buy meat if you work late and feel like a steak when you get home.”
But Emmanuel Gripon of the French Bakers’ Federation was less keen, particularly when it came to similar vending machines for vending. “I oppose these machines because they stop people coming into our shops,” said Gripon. “It’s contributing to the desertification of the countryside and it harms the social life of communities.”
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