Thursday Aug 28th 2014, I ran into my old pal Duncan and got an impromptu tour of the backrooms of the Fresh-o-Matic vending machine test center at 931 Progress Ave on the east side of Toronto.

A real nifty place to work, Fresh-O-Matic has been a market leader in vending machines for many dozens of years, and here today in this facility people are working on making the next generation vending machines for North American consumers, ensuring the corporation will remain relevant years into the future.

Inside the test facility at 931 Progress Ave, the knobs and buttons of each machine are tested and then set to create the coffee flavours and or mechanics of the individual processes in the machines. The guys here do coffee machines, setting up espresso and cappuccino processes etc , but this also where Fresh-o-Matic pimps out custom order vending machines to retail other more exotic products - computer keypad makes anything possible.


This is the inside of a vending machine, laid open in the test facility.
Its estimated that the vending industry is worth approx 37 billion in North America alone (2013) And its getting bigger because its a very economical use of space - vending machines can do business around the clock, which is good for urban shoppers who work odd hours.

This man does the tech support and is the voice on the other end of the phone walking dealers through set up and trouble shooting issues, maintenance and even helping make the vending machines more efficient in the work place.

This is me helping myself to a snack at the end of the tour!

Not quite abandoned, but cool none the less. Since I imagine that very few people get to see the inside of one one these places, it's nice that you were able to get in.

Hmmm, how does "Overt Infiltration" sound to describe this?