By Najma Sambul
They are slowly popping up all over Melbourne but at the city’s Southern Cross Station, they have proliferated: robots completing the functions once performed by humans.
From bubble tea to fresh pizza, flowers and even dog treats, the machines are appearing in places where businesses and their workers once stood.
The Robo Tea machine in Southern Cross Station.Credit: Simon Schluter
At the Spencer Street railway station entrance is Robo Tea, a robot-operated bubble tea machine offering thirsty customers a range of milk and fruit teas, all prepared by a robotic arm within minutes.
Nearby, other machines offer nail art and choc-top ice creams.
Upstairs, Pizza Me cooks up fresh, hot pizza with flavours ranging from a traditional margherita, with a vegan option, to hot salami through to a simple cheese and garlic topping.
Next to Pizza Me is Chewy Chews, which sells all-natural meat snacks for pooches.
Illustration: Matt GoldingCredit:
When The Age visited on Friday, while purchases from the machines were rare, curious onlookers occasionally stopped to take a glance or play with the machines, before catching their train.
Southern Cross Station’s acting general manager, Amity Patten, said the pop-ups were “unique to Australia” and installed in July last year to engage commuters outside empty shopfronts while new tenants moved in.
“As there was a large turnover in tenancies after the pandemic it was thought that some short-term vending machines, or ‘pop-ups’, would be a good way to still provide a retail offering to customers while work on the tenancies was carried out,” Patten said.
“All through Europe and Asia vending machines are providing innovative retail solutions, with everything being vended from bunches of flowers to t-shirts. The Tokyo train stations were also an inspiration for the team,” she said.
Commuters at Southern Cross Station look at the pizza vending machine on level one.Credit: Simon Schluter
There are currently nine temporary pop-ups scattered across the station and those to come include Gacha Gacha, a Japanese capsule toy machine, and a card machine selling Pokémon, NBA, and Marvel cards, said Patten.
Across the city and suburbs, high-tech vending machines are showing up. In Melbourne Central, collectable store Pop Mart has a vending machine outside the front of its shop. The Robo Tea franchise is also located in Woolworths, Fishermans Bend, and Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre, in Point Cook.
But Nick Aronis, vending machine supplier and owner of Ventrader, said it’s not a trend that he sees taking off in Australia like it has in other parts of the world. He said the issue with high-tech vending machines is that they can cost anywhere between $20,000 to $30,000 and require more maintenance than a standard vending machine.
The blowfly in the Robo Tea machine on Friday.Credit: Simon Schluter
“Over the years we have supplied machines with large touch screens, video, as well as various products that are inside the machine. A lot of people want them but nobody wants to pay for them,” said Aronis, who has been in the industry for 20 years.
“It’s a gimmick. Although we play around in that sector, Australia’s population is very small in comparison to Japan and China, where those products have flourished,” he said.
Aronis also pointed to the US market as an example of the high-tech vending machine not taking off. “Historically when you look at the US market we are typically two years behind the US and we’ve seen that product die in the US and people went back to the traditional equipment. If it doesn’t work there, it’s highly unlikely that it will work here.”
To illustrate the issue of what happens when there is no human present, during The Age’s visit, the Robo Tea vending machine at Southern Cross Station had a large blowfly stuck in it.
When asked about the hygiene of the machines located at the station a spokesperson for Southern Cross Station management said the Robo Team undertake a complete sanitisation of the machines about three to four times a week. “The Southern Cross Station team has spoken to the [Robo Team] to remind them of their responsibilities,” a spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for JnS robotics, which imports and installs the machines, said this was the first report of an insect in one of their machines and an investigation was underway.
The spokesperson said ingredients were changed daily.
The pop-ups will remain at the station until July 2024 or whenever the properties are leased.
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