Tourists egg-cited over new roadside vending machine: 'That is so cool'
While rare, the fascinating initiative is becoming more common in Australia for its 'convenience'.
A couple were flabbergasted to find eggs in a vending machine, which one Australian business owner calls a "convenient solution" that is now growing in popularity.
The tourists were cruising through Ireland when they saw Egan’s Farm free-range egg vending machine on the side of the road. Completely amazed by the concept, the couple decided to try it for themselves while filming the whole process.
With a simple tap of the card, the machine launched into action and one of the draws flew open to reveal 32 eggs in a carton.
"Woah its just popped open," the US man said. "Oh my gosh this is 7 dollars, I had no idea what I was getting," he said of the eggs, which equate to about A$10.
"This would have been $1000 in America," he joked.
Egg vending machines a 'convenient' solution
While the sales of vending machines modified for eggs are rare in Australia, owner of TCN Vending Australia, Ehab Shalabi, says they are "absolutely" becoming more common in general stores, convenience stores and farms across the country.
"It's an unmanned 24-hour store," he told Yahoo News Australia. "They love the product, they love what we’ve done, it's helped their business get to another level and its made it more convenient for them."
At the moment, Mr Shalabi's company has seen approximately "half a dozen" sales for vending machines reconfigured to store eggs. But "there are also people who buy the machines and set it up themselves in order to store things like eggs" as well as bread and fruit.
"The machines are modified so the eggs deliver onto an elevated platform and have soft (material) so they don’t break," he said.
Royal Vending Australia have also had good feedback from customers, with farmers saying the initiative has led to an "increase [in] profits," according to their blog.
"With most farmers working long hours and having very little time for themselves, the egg vending machine has become a great way to ease the work load on farmers by minimising the hours dedicated to selling the eggs, and the vending machine to offer the eggs for sale 24 hours a day 7 days a week," it reads.
'I didn't know they eggsisted'
Since being posted on Wednesday, the video from Ireland has gone viral, amassing more than 1.2 millions views.
Many had never heard of eggs being sold in vending machines before and thought it was a "brilliant" initiative.
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"That’s new to me," one Aussie commented on TikTok.
"That's a fantastic idea," said another. "We need these in NZ,' a third person said.
While rare, it is understood that the same company has other egg machines in parts of Ireland, with the initiative also existing in other parts of Europe, Japan and America.
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