When we last met the Coca Cola Co. at McCormick Place, it was demonstrating its next-generation vending machines during the National Vending Show — sleek iPad-ish contraptions that had us envisioning a bright future for fingerprint removal services.
That was last month. This month, at the National Restaurant Association Show at McCormick, which ends Tuesday, we met the next-
next
-gen Coca-Cola Freestyle, a touch-sensitive soda fountain for restaurants that offers 104 Coke-related drink options. Sprite with Peach? You got it. Fanta Zero Grape? Sure. Caffeine-free Diet Coke with Orange? No prob. Coke with Lime?
Duh
.
While waiting in line for a test spin, we met Dean Marple, a Texas salesman for soft-drink machine dispensers. “This is the most exciting thing at this show,” he said. “But then, the business hasn’t changed much in 60 years.”
Indeed, a classic soda fountain employs a series of nozzles — select a drink and carbonated water is mixed with syrup then pushed through the machine and out the respective spigot into your cup. The Freestyle uses 26 cartridges — each resembles an ink-jet cartridge but holds concentrate. There is just one nozzle. As water streams through the spigot, any needed cartridges squirt the stream with very precise amounts of flavored concentrate.
Coke calls this “micro-dosing” — a technology adopted from the medical technology that dispenses drugs to cancer patients. It also attempts to address a long-standing complaint — that the quality of a Coke depends on the restaurant serving it. In a Freestyle world, all Coke tastes the same. So far, machines are being tested in Atlanta and California. Chicago gets its first (in an as-yet-unidentified restaurant) in August.
