Date of Issue: December 2021 Issue of Bakery Japan　　Category: Reports

The Story About Bread Vending Machines in Japan


Solo Bakery install a vending machines by the fornt door.


"Campagne" is made with the original levain.


Inside "Hakopan"， there are vending machines filled with shokupan breads.



The most popular item is a product named "Usual Shokupan".
In the October issue of Boulansserie, our monthly bread magazine, we covered three bakeries on the theme of "bread vending machines". I didn't think that vending machines had much to do with the operation of a bakery, but I was greatly moved when I saw how these bakeries utilize vending machines in the operation of their bakeries. Each of them use vending machines in its own way which is completely different from each other.

One of the bakeries we covered is Solo Bakery, where the chef-owner make all breads from start to finish by himself. I used to be a student at an art collage, and consider bread items at a retail bakery to be works of art. And I understand the desire of bread bakers to create their own works from start to finish.

The owner of Solo Bakery chose to use a vending machine as a tool for selling bread in order to run the shop by himself. I thought it was very nice that the vending machine was integrated into the shop operation in a natural and unpretentious way. I was also impressed by the natural affirmation the owner of Solo Bakery had for himself.

Keimei Inc.is another baking company we covered in the October issue of Boulansserie. The company operates "Hakopan," a shop that sells bread from vending machines. In addition to Hakopan, the company operates a sandwich delivery shop called "Ricos Sandwich", and all the breads used in these businesses are made at the main factory at the headquarters of the company. Before they started the Hakopan business, they operated Fete du Pain Bakery. Hakopan was started to take over and sell the breads of Fete de Pain Bakery after it was closed.

The company's business model is a little different from that of a typical bakery, but minute examinations on the values of the business model that is different from yours will give you a chance to reconsider the values of your own bakery business. I think it can greatly broaden your perspective.

The third bakery we covered is A-1 Bakery, which operates four bakeries around Osaka areas. They have set up a vending machine on the premises of their central factory to sell breads manufactured at the factory that falls outside of their internal standards.

Although the sales are small compared to the company's overall sales, the breads sold from the vending machine is 1.35 tons every month. This means that 1.35 tons of food loss is reduced every month, because those breads would have been disposed of if they were not sold from the vending machine.

These 3 bakeries are using vending machines in their own creative ways. Even under 1 single theme, values are so diversified among the 3 bakeries we covered, suggesting that we are living in the days when everyone can show his or her originality. And the actions taken under a single theme can easily be compared, and can easily given deep considerations, providing us a microcosm of the diversified values of today's society and help us make more correct judgments about them.

As a result of the corona virus pandemic, people all over the world took various actions based on their own values in response to the single theme of fighting against corona virus, and I believe that people's understanding of the world has become much deeper than it was before the pandemic.

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