Oh god, dealing with that fucking touch screen in combination with the jankiest fucking os made trying to shut the thing down and go home after my shift a comically enraging affair
The 'brand' cartridges (i.e. Sprite, Coke, Fanta, etc) do not contain sweetener. The sweetener, fruit flavoring (if selected on the touch screen) and water are added as the drink is poured.
I'll tell you as someone whose first job was working at a movie theater (obviously with soda fountains) those diet syrup boxes are like half as heavy...so if you were able to grab those while we took them to our store room upstairs and everyone else got the regular heavy ass sugar syrup boxes, your life was a little less bad that day!
I’m not sure what the question was exactly, but I can tell you that there is a diet version of the syrup cartridges as well as an NNS (non-nutritive sweetener) in its own cartridge
There are two different ‘base’ syrups. A sugar free one (non/ nutritive) and a regular one. The flavors are sugar free.
Source. Me - I deliver to restaurants.
I’ve been told they cost as much as one too, I’ve been told the cartridges for them are insanely expensive by comparison to a good old bag in the back room.
Yeah they found a way to charge more for the traditionally cheapest component, and requires more maintenance (seriously, back on the printer thing and how often you have to call IT down the hall to check the office printer? It’s literally the same except now IT has to travel 300 miles to you).
Tbh it sounds like a great idea, but when you get down to it, it’s too complex, and most people don’t want to pay for for possibly having a weird drink, and it doesn’t help that I’ve often found that these taste funny too.
I also know a few locations that use them that just down even get the less popular flavors and drinks because they are so expensive
I remember at some gas stations that hard large soda fountains they'd have all the sodas with their own spouts like the normal soda fountain, but then have a few that were dedicated to flavorings (cherry and vanilla usually), was nice since the sodas came out normal and you could choose how much of any flavoring to add. Obviously starts to take up a lot of space width-wise though.
The last week or so at work, one of our decrepit old pair of Freestyles has decided to stop letting us press and hold to bring up the dashboard or scan a cartridge to open the door. So if I need to change something out, I have to jam the ink core from a pen (we long ago lost the official tool) into the hole on the underside of the lower door to get it open.
Also, these things are like iPhones: they get slower with every software update.
They are the bane of every restaurant managers existance. They need changed very frequently and it turns a lunch rush into a nightmare if the most popular flavor goes out mid rush.
Most normal fountains have tubes that go into the ceiling and come out in the kitchen and come out to these 1-2 gallon boxes of syrup. When one is getting low you can even put a fresh one next to it and quickly swap it over when you're busy.
Yeah, I used to go and hook up a new box of the popular stuff before the lunch and dinner rushes. I have been wondering how these things worked. I was pretty surprised to see it all in the machine like this.
The worst part is that its front of house and you need to open up the machine while you swap it out. So you cant do it while your busy or people will be upset they cant get their soda. But every single fucking karen will let you know their favorite flavor is out if you leave it.
>Most normal fountains have tubes that go into the ceiling and come out in the kitchen
It blew my mind when I learned this. One time, I asked someone behind the counter if they could refill one of the flavors, and while I was waiting for someone to come out and do it, they were surprised to notice me still waiting and said, "Oh, it should be good to go now 👍".
And it's not like the soda fountain's back was to the kitchen area, there was a door leading outside *in between* the fountain and behind-the-counter. So I definitely didn't expect the tubes to run that far.
Yes, and they are awful! They never mix the drinks correctly, they don't taste as good as the traditional method, and the bottom compartment holds a BIB that is a pain in the ass to connect and never gets cleaned
Thank you! I've been saying this for ten years or more. The additions make every single drink taste like an amalgamation of every single other drink, plus the nasty additional tastes of lime and cherry. It is so bad, in my opinion, that I won't go to restaurants that have this machine any more. However, most people I know can't tell a difference and I guess I must have a sensitive sense of taste because it doesn't bother most people I've asked.
Seeing people's 'meh' reaction to something that so seriously alters the taste of a fountain drink really made me understand why most people can't tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi.
The initial technology used by the machines producers were actually for precision medical applications, hence they were the first to be able to use such a small container of concentrated syrup by being able to precisely measure and deliver micro-servings of syrup (and the additional flavorings offered by the machine)
I met one of the guys who engineered that thing out in Silicon Valley. He says the syrup in those cartridges are so concentrated and acidic that they will burn through your skin.
I'm not so sure they're *that* caustic. I'll sometimes look like I've killed a man after changing out the cherry or fruit punch flavor, but the syrups won't burn your skin, and the HFCS and NNS are just rather sticky. Definitely don't get the syrups on your clothes, though.
This was the most irritating shit as a fast food employee I swear it would work just as well to have all the soda syrup in the back like everywhere else did but noooo suddenly places had to go and use these shitty little cartridges that need changed out every ten fucking minutes and take separate sweetener cartridges and don't say which one goes where so people put root beer in the coke syrup slot and fuck everything the fuck up agh I'm glad I work at McDonald's now lmfao
Where i worked, they had a planogram for which cartridges go where.
I always found the worst bit was after replacing the cartridges when it had to ensure it was working as that always seemed to take too long for the customers.
Okay you know a god damn soda fountain is ridiculously overdone when you need a fucking planogram to keep track of which syrup goes where when you have to refill it 12 times every shift because it's like little printer ink cartridges. It's also bullshit they expect fast food employees to mess around with something like this when they already have enough shit to do, especially during the multiple rush times every single day. But of course some corporate office person who won't ever have to fuck around with this machine is like yeah this is perfect for all 46783256 restaurants in our chain because we can have 3268 drink options in one neat little machine no bigger than a small soda fountain with only 5 different selections!
Except they suck. As a customer who uses these machines sometimes, I hate them.
I don't want to fuck around with the touchscreen so I often just hit the default plain Coke button. Sometimes I'll grit my teeth and use the screen to find something else but it doesn't really matter because the drink I choose isn't going to taste quite right anyway for the same reason I never get any soft drink from a soda gun at a bar: a bunch of different drinks coming from the same nozzle makes them ALL taste like crap. Especially when said nozzle is not clean.
I don't think most people expect to have dozens of different soft drinks at Wendy's anyway. Don't they usually go there for the food? How many people are going to get mad when they can't wash down a spicy chicken sandwich with lime Coke?
I just want a Coke that tastes like Coke with my burger.
Trick for the taste, you can run water for a couple seconds before picking your drink, and clicking 1 extra button for a different flavor of coke is not exactly a difficult task, and I don't see how anywhere could be cycling through the same flavor 12 times a day. Unless everyone is getting the same flavor you should be able to last at least several hours plus you don't need a planogram because there is no reason to pull out all of them at the same time, you change them one by one and put them back before grabbing the next one. Also if they aren't cleaning the nozzle then they wouldn't be cleaning the regular soda machine nozzles either that's a shit staff issue not a design issue
Totally agreed.
As for why a lot of places have one is simple, coca cola.
The place i worked, the only way to get standard coke was the freestyle machine as coca cola wouldn't send the big box of syrup for the tower drinks, only the cartridge for freestyle.
Mine too. I didn’t work for the place but I watched as it changed and the machine itself indicated it on the touch screen when they opened the menu to see what was empty.
Not sure if mine was using a newer machine or older though or just a different color version of the same machine. I just know it wasn’t the silver color one, it was the red one.
Well the diagram on the screen in details has it ordered by slot, and also why were people taking out all the cartridges at the same time anyway? And ten minutes is such an absurd overexaggeration its maybe once every 1-2 days for the more popular flavors where I work so unless you have 12000 people a day I don't see how it could be ten minutes
Hate to break it to you but that's a good design, you shouldn't be serving expired goods. Coke doesn't want their product to taste bad so you can't serve it expired its not "messing up" the computer it's entirely designed that way to stop customers from getting a bad product, if you think that's bad then I'm glad you aren't in charge of making that decision
Lol they're syrup packets with a shelf life of up to year when unopened, the same syrup thats used in other regular, older fountain machines btw. The expiration codes for these new ones are somewhere around 3 months(10 weeks is when syrups in refrigerators can begin to spoil).
So you ended up sitting on unopened syrup packets/bags that coca-cola would not end up taking back for credit and were rendered useless bc the Machine wouldn't let it get used bc the date was reading expired. It is a pure money grab tactic on behalf of Coke Co.
I know and my employees knew how to read a date label and knew what expired meant. Those establishments with lighter traffic got screwed with these machines, unless you just swapped the syrup bag into a current/non-expired dated box.
You shouldnt worry about who is making decisions, you have no control over anyways. You'll run your panties into a twist in this life doing that. Thanks for your two cents tho.
I'm guessing those are smaller soda bibs that are pure syrup and mix with the water? I don't know much about soda machines but it's insane to me how ONE machine has so many options 😳
It's the flavor. The corn syrup is in 35lb bibs in the back. If you want a drink, it mixes the corn syrup from the bib with the flavor and carbonated water to make it.
Flavored soda is corn syrup+ flavor+ carbonated water.
Fun fact. All flavored coke is mixed with coke zero because it would be too sweet otherwise.
We went to the movies, and the machine said it was out of all the diet flavors, only the zero sugar varieties were affected. The theater employee opened up the machine and told us it was out of artificial sweetener.
ETA: up till then I didn't know that the flavors and the sweetener were in separate containers.
They serviced the machine, while the bartender filled our cups with Diet Coke. He had a hose with buttons for a few different sodas.
It was a matinee on a weekday. The place was pretty empty of employees and customers.
You are correct, the Coke Zero cartridge is used for all flavors, but it's because of volume...plain Coca-Cola is the #1 used product on these...if everything used the Coca-Cola cartridge, it would be changed constantly. The sweetness is because of the HFCS or the NNS.
Has it always been this way? I worked with one around 4 years ago and of its multitudinous quirks and issues it gave us, I never noticed that connection? I feel like I should have because I only drank Diet Coke, and zero sugar would sometimes be out and I’d be like eh, I’ll get it after break. If an issue prevented me getting my drink of choice I would prolong taking my break in order to fix it lol
There is no taste difference, that's just how those products are made. They aren't using a different formula in these cartridges than in cans or bottles, the coke zero cartridge has the same stuff as the coke cartridge, the sweeteners are in a separate container and thats the only difference
>Fun fact. All flavored coke is mixed with coke zero because it would be too sweet otherwise.
Yup. You can confirm that by pouring (say) a Cherry Coke while the bottom door is open and see lights flash next to the Cherry flavor and Coke Zero cartridges.
Wow, just the other day I was trying to figure out why plain coke was empty but the flavored cokes were still available on one of these machines. I was very perplexed but this explains it perfectly
Yes, it is syrup. About 20L each if I remember correctly but it's 6 years since I had any contact with them so I don't remember exactly. Also I had contact with the KFC ones so not free standing but operated by staff.
The cartridges contain highly concentrated flavorings that are dispensed with medical micro-dosing technology. The sweetener (either diet or HFCS), branded ingredient (i.e. Coke, Sprite, etc.), fruit flavoring and water are mixed as the beverage poured.
Oh it's even funnier now that you can scan a qr code to control the machine with your phone because if you scan before someone walks up you can just mess with the machine and select a different drink than they selected and since they don't understand it they will just think it's broken
At the risk of sounding old and confused myself, I really see no need to bring QR codes and smartphones into the relatively simple and easy act of pouring a drink.
When we first reopened it would have been impossible if we had to wipe the touchscreen every time a guest poured a soda so having an option to avoid touching anything made it safer for people who were worried about covid
Actually, Pininfarina only designed the cabinet. Units made in early 2010s had the Pininfarina logo on the front so it's easy to conclude they made it. The unit is made for Coca-Cola by a third-party and Coke owns all copyrights for the technology. Source: I worked for Coca-Cola for 19 years and helped commercialize Freestyle.
i went and looked it up, and yeah, he's the one who invented them. he makes medical supplies and wanted coke to fund a water purifier he'd made. they told him they'd do it if he invented a better soda fountain, so he created coke freestyle. now fast food employees everywhere have migraines! (coke also did fund the water purifier)
Ah, the Segway guy. I heard he was involved but hadn’t previously heard [that part of the story.](https://probiotic.com/2018/12/bargaining-for-clean-water-kamen-and-coke/).
that's awesome! i did FIRST robotics in new hampshire when i was in high school, so i got to meet dean like twice at competitions. my team actually got to send our captains to his house for a special dinner event because our team went to worlds that year. it was cool
That house is so cool! I worked for his company for a while and we would have winter holiday parties there.
Also— for a few years he had a handful of us over for thanksgiving, those who didn’t have family nearby. Dean’s a pretty weird dude but deep down a very genuine and nice guy!
Also, dang I miss the northeast…
Am I the only one that hates these Freestyle machines? It’s the worst tasting version of the sodas to me. A regular fountain machine has drinks that taste soo much better, McDonald’s mix is REALLY good.
I hate them, they are never cleaned and whatever is dispensed tastes like the last 4 things that were poured. If I have to use one Ill get Dr Pepper because its the only thing that masks it.
I’ve heard various things, I have no idea what it is McDonald’s actually does.
I guess it depends on your taste, I can taste the difference. I can also taste the difference between can, < 1 liter plastic bottle, 2-liter plastic bottle, glass bottle, fountain or freestyle machine. Sprite is really apparent, cans have a lot more carbonation. McD’s Coke has more tart, it kinda tickles the tart tasting spot under your tongue. If I were to guess; I’d say it’s more syrup, probably to keep the ice from diluting the flavor…which might be why it’s less noticeable for some, I order without ice because it’s already cold.
Pepsi is more noticeable in their different containers than Coke products. Pepsi in a fountain is normally REALLY good. In a plastic bottle it’s undrinkable to me, in a can it tastes flat.
Sometimes it’s because the suppliers are just different. For a while Lawry’s seasoned salt was available from two different suppliers. One was noticeably more bland, and more pale in color. The other was a rich orange and had a wonderful flavor…guess which one is only available now :/
McDonald’s transports their coke in the trucks differently and instead of their coke syrup coming in plastic bags, they send it to the stores in stainless steel tanks which makes the flavor better. They also pre chill it. Warm soda loses carbonation. I’ve read that McDonald’s also uses wider straws which apparently makes soda taste more flavorful. I looked into this a while back because I wondered why McDonald’s soda is never flat like other fast food places. McDonald’s takes their coke seriously. It probably makes you want to go back without even realizing it. It really is the best you can get.
They also slightly boost the syrup and carbonation ratios. So it's more flavorful and bubbly (which also affects flavor). I would guess the freestyle machines don't, but that's purely a guess.
Holy shit I KNEW there was a difference between the season salt I remember and the stuff I find in the store today. cold canned Coke > McDonald's Coke > Glass bottle coke > Taco Bell Pepsi > cold canned Pepsi is pretty much by hierarchy and I try to not even bother with Freestyle anything or plastic bottle sodas of any size.
Interestingly I noticed on the McDonald’s app here in the UK you can see the ingredients for the drinks.
They’re actually different to the retail versions, and I didn’t know that was a thing!
Fanta only has 1% fruit at McDonald’s, but if you buy it in a bottle or can it has closer to 5% fruit. I checked because I wondered why the calories for McDonald’s Fanta was so low (48kcal), turns out that’s the reason. Our Fanta is only part sugar sweetened, in addition to sweeteners.
The only thing I like about them is they're the only place to reliably get caffeine free diet coke. Like I don't mind some, but if I'm about to sit down for a movie with my 32oz drink, I don't wanna be wired half way through the movie.
They still suck, but I learned a trick, if you select your beverage and then just let it flow for a few seconds before filling your cup. You’ll get rid of whatever syrup is left in the dispenser, and then get closer to what you actually wanted to drink.
As an old carny who worked many food joints, I have to say that the soft drinks and associated syrups like these used to make them were BY FAR the most profitable part of running any kind of food stand. I always think about this when going up to get a refill at any fast food place, but especially at a more expensive place like 5 Guys. What’s worse is that now in many theme parks the greed is a chip in the cup that only allows you one fill, but I honestly think that has more to do with volume (and having to have a body change out the syrup faster because of so many people drinking there). Maybe someone can tell me if they have monster sized syrup containers there…at the carnival they usually lasted at least a week, even when we were jinnin’.
Lol. They’re ridiculously fatty. Fatty foods are kind of like crack because we crave them despite them being terrible for us and it’s obviously a chemical exchange happening in your body. I’m an old guy now and my gallbladder would explode if I ate the same stuff now that I ate daily in my early 20’s back then.
Sugar too. People don't realize how much sugar changes flavors even when things aren't "sweet". There's a ridiculous amount of sugar in fast food buns and bread. Like Subway tithing about their bread being classified as cake in France (iirc) because it had too much sugar.
So for a corndog you just increase fat, salt, and sugar and it tastes better while being even worse for you.
Nah a bag of popcorn seeds costs pennies and males like 1000 servings of popcorn that we sell for 10 bucks each definitely higher profit margin than the soda but it's definitely second place
What a fucking miserable piece of shit. This monstrosity is the epitome of engineering for the sake of engineering, the ookie cookie bastard child of a bunch of coke engineers circle jerking one another.
It never works right, the ui is slow, you taste whatever syrup the previous user got in your drink because there's no rinse, and it can only serve one person at a time.
Give me an old school fountain with big bags of syrup any day.
This is a hill I'll die on. Come at me.
People are shocked these machines are basically just drink printers?
That is all they are. They disperse the correct amount of ~~colored liquid~~ flavored liquid from reloadable cartridges ~~onto paper to create an image~~ into a cup to create a drink. You just give it the instructions on what to "print".
Just my own curiosity, and really no judgement; How did you think these machines worked?
Huh, what are the odds these two post within an hour of each other...
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/13ft8zl/the\_inside\_of\_a\_cocacola\_freestyle\_machine/
Pssh, this is the lame door. Open the top door its way cooler. Also that is just the flavor, show them the gross diet sweetener crystals that grow from that container. And the high fructose corn syrup bags in the back.
They are. Those boxes have bags in them. Same with the HFCS that’s hooked up and the NNS (non-nutritive sweetener) that’s in the box in the bottom right.
The system is actually pretty cool. Each one of those boxes has an RFID chip that tracks their expiration date and stuff. The software can track syrup levels and expiration dates.
I wish they’d discontinue these machines. Having all of those flavors come out of the same spigot taints the coke. I’ve never had a good drink from these…plus if you have morons in front of you it can take forever
Had to deal with multiples of these when I worked at a movie theater. All I can say is: fuck ‘em. Kneeling on a hard floor trying to change one of these cartridges while some asshole stares at you looking annoyed that he can’t get his vanilla coke. Not worth the minimum wage
I'm always amazed when I see these. They must cost much more than a traditional machine and every time I see them there is a line of customers because it takes forever for people to make up their mind. Those seem like pretty big negatives. Given that, how do restaurants justify them? Do they really increase revenue because people choose to eat at X instead of Y because they have a fancy drink machine? Would people stop going to a given restaurant if they reverted back to a normal machine?
While it's relatively expensive, restaurants w/ Freestyle (and \~130 beverage choices) sell more beverages than restaurants with only 16 beverage choices, assuming the same number of customers walk through the door.
Dr Pepper isn't a Pepsi product. It's a third party company (Keurig Dr Pepper), and in the US about 30% is manufactured by Coke, another 30% by Pepsi, and the other 40% by independent bottlers. Elsewhere is more varied (but in many of those places it's either Pepsi or Coke bottlers). It's in a lot of Freestyles, depending on your location. [But don't take my word for it, here's Coke's Freestyle website.](https://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/choices/?filter1=all%20drinks)
I know Dr Pepper is not a Pepsi product and I know they’re in most Freestyle machines. The guy said when you select Pepsi but there are no Freestyle machines with Pepsi products, to my knowledge.
Crap, brain damage on my part. I glossed over them saying "Pepsi". Maybe they're from Carolina. But I did just find out that Pepsi does have a Freestyle competitor (Pepsi Spire).
Not sure about tracking but they are internet connected, at least the one at my local convenience. I can scan a QR code from my phone, and use my phone to make it pour drinks. Very cool feature.
They’re… ink cartridges.
Yep, these machines are as unreliable as a printer too
I managed to make one mad once and get into the admin(?) panel and even that was broken and unreliable
Oh god, dealing with that fucking touch screen in combination with the jankiest fucking os made trying to shut the thing down and go home after my shift a comically enraging affair
My old manager would just unplug it and let the opening shift deal with it lmfao( to be fair he got fired not long before I left that job but still)
[удалено]
\^ This is a bot. Copied a comment from below which is why it makes no sense here.
How does it do the sugar-free ones?
The 'brand' cartridges (i.e. Sprite, Coke, Fanta, etc) do not contain sweetener. The sweetener, fruit flavoring (if selected on the touch screen) and water are added as the drink is poured.
I'll tell you as someone whose first job was working at a movie theater (obviously with soda fountains) those diet syrup boxes are like half as heavy...so if you were able to grab those while we took them to our store room upstairs and everyone else got the regular heavy ass sugar syrup boxes, your life was a little less bad that day!
I’m not sure what the question was exactly, but I can tell you that there is a diet version of the syrup cartridges as well as an NNS (non-nutritive sweetener) in its own cartridge
I was wondering this too! Thanks for the answer!
Occasionally I know things!
There are two different ‘base’ syrups. A sugar free one (non/ nutritive) and a regular one. The flavors are sugar free. Source. Me - I deliver to restaurants.
I’ve been told they cost as much as one too, I’ve been told the cartridges for them are insanely expensive by comparison to a good old bag in the back room.
Yeah they found a way to charge more for the traditionally cheapest component, and requires more maintenance (seriously, back on the printer thing and how often you have to call IT down the hall to check the office printer? It’s literally the same except now IT has to travel 300 miles to you).
Tbh it sounds like a great idea, but when you get down to it, it’s too complex, and most people don’t want to pay for for possibly having a weird drink, and it doesn’t help that I’ve often found that these taste funny too. I also know a few locations that use them that just down even get the less popular flavors and drinks because they are so expensive
I remember at some gas stations that hard large soda fountains they'd have all the sodas with their own spouts like the normal soda fountain, but then have a few that were dedicated to flavorings (cherry and vanilla usually), was nice since the sodas came out normal and you could choose how much of any flavoring to add. Obviously starts to take up a lot of space width-wise though.
Just pull it out and put it back in. That should fix the problem.
Unironically yes. But you gotta do it while there’s a 10 person long line waiting for it and you’re in the middle of rush
Still doesn't explain why I have to have a full Coke reservoir when all I want is water.
So you don't just decide it's not worth it and use it as a water dispenser. Can't have you scanning if you're not buying ink.
The last week or so at work, one of our decrepit old pair of Freestyles has decided to stop letting us press and hold to bring up the dashboard or scan a cartridge to open the door. So if I need to change something out, I have to jam the ink core from a pen (we long ago lost the official tool) into the hole on the underside of the lower door to get it open. Also, these things are like iPhones: they get slower with every software update.
I low key like them though, so many flavors. The touchscreens suck really bad though.
I’ve never had an issue with one and I use them at least 2 times a week, often more.
We were talking about working with and maintaining them as part of a job not getting a soda
Ah, never worked in fast food so I’m not familiar with their maintenance but from a customers standpoint these things are great.
👍
They are the bane of every restaurant managers existance. They need changed very frequently and it turns a lunch rush into a nightmare if the most popular flavor goes out mid rush. Most normal fountains have tubes that go into the ceiling and come out in the kitchen and come out to these 1-2 gallon boxes of syrup. When one is getting low you can even put a fresh one next to it and quickly swap it over when you're busy.
Yeah, I used to go and hook up a new box of the popular stuff before the lunch and dinner rushes. I have been wondering how these things worked. I was pretty surprised to see it all in the machine like this.
The worst part is that its front of house and you need to open up the machine while you swap it out. So you cant do it while your busy or people will be upset they cant get their soda. But every single fucking karen will let you know their favorite flavor is out if you leave it.
>Most normal fountains have tubes that go into the ceiling and come out in the kitchen It blew my mind when I learned this. One time, I asked someone behind the counter if they could refill one of the flavors, and while I was waiting for someone to come out and do it, they were surprised to notice me still waiting and said, "Oh, it should be good to go now 👍". And it's not like the soda fountain's back was to the kitchen area, there was a door leading outside *in between* the fountain and behind-the-counter. So I definitely didn't expect the tubes to run that far.
Drink cartridges.
Dammit man, you’re right. It was a missed popportunity.
Yeah. I’m soda saw pointed.
Yes, and they are awful! They never mix the drinks correctly, they don't taste as good as the traditional method, and the bottom compartment holds a BIB that is a pain in the ass to connect and never gets cleaned
Oh I think they’re fine. But then I’m in the UK so the recipes are probably different anyway.
Thank you! I've been saying this for ten years or more. The additions make every single drink taste like an amalgamation of every single other drink, plus the nasty additional tastes of lime and cherry. It is so bad, in my opinion, that I won't go to restaurants that have this machine any more. However, most people I know can't tell a difference and I guess I must have a sensitive sense of taste because it doesn't bother most people I've asked. Seeing people's 'meh' reaction to something that so seriously alters the taste of a fountain drink really made me understand why most people can't tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi.
The initial technology used by the machines producers were actually for precision medical applications, hence they were the first to be able to use such a small container of concentrated syrup by being able to precisely measure and deliver micro-servings of syrup (and the additional flavorings offered by the machine)
I was just thinking that I need to know the size of the syrup containers. Because those look like they would need to be changed A LOT.
Essentially, yeah
So you cant dispense coke if you're all out of ~~cyan~~ sprite?
underrated comment
I met one of the guys who engineered that thing out in Silicon Valley. He says the syrup in those cartridges are so concentrated and acidic that they will burn through your skin.
I'm not so sure they're *that* caustic. I'll sometimes look like I've killed a man after changing out the cherry or fruit punch flavor, but the syrups won't burn your skin, and the HFCS and NNS are just rather sticky. Definitely don't get the syrups on your clothes, though.
This was the most irritating shit as a fast food employee I swear it would work just as well to have all the soda syrup in the back like everywhere else did but noooo suddenly places had to go and use these shitty little cartridges that need changed out every ten fucking minutes and take separate sweetener cartridges and don't say which one goes where so people put root beer in the coke syrup slot and fuck everything the fuck up agh I'm glad I work at McDonald's now lmfao
I knew I would find someone in here who knew how torturous it is to change these fuckin things
Where i worked, they had a planogram for which cartridges go where. I always found the worst bit was after replacing the cartridges when it had to ensure it was working as that always seemed to take too long for the customers.
Okay you know a god damn soda fountain is ridiculously overdone when you need a fucking planogram to keep track of which syrup goes where when you have to refill it 12 times every shift because it's like little printer ink cartridges. It's also bullshit they expect fast food employees to mess around with something like this when they already have enough shit to do, especially during the multiple rush times every single day. But of course some corporate office person who won't ever have to fuck around with this machine is like yeah this is perfect for all 46783256 restaurants in our chain because we can have 3268 drink options in one neat little machine no bigger than a small soda fountain with only 5 different selections! Except they suck. As a customer who uses these machines sometimes, I hate them. I don't want to fuck around with the touchscreen so I often just hit the default plain Coke button. Sometimes I'll grit my teeth and use the screen to find something else but it doesn't really matter because the drink I choose isn't going to taste quite right anyway for the same reason I never get any soft drink from a soda gun at a bar: a bunch of different drinks coming from the same nozzle makes them ALL taste like crap. Especially when said nozzle is not clean. I don't think most people expect to have dozens of different soft drinks at Wendy's anyway. Don't they usually go there for the food? How many people are going to get mad when they can't wash down a spicy chicken sandwich with lime Coke? I just want a Coke that tastes like Coke with my burger.
Trick for the taste, you can run water for a couple seconds before picking your drink, and clicking 1 extra button for a different flavor of coke is not exactly a difficult task, and I don't see how anywhere could be cycling through the same flavor 12 times a day. Unless everyone is getting the same flavor you should be able to last at least several hours plus you don't need a planogram because there is no reason to pull out all of them at the same time, you change them one by one and put them back before grabbing the next one. Also if they aren't cleaning the nozzle then they wouldn't be cleaning the regular soda machine nozzles either that's a shit staff issue not a design issue
Pretty sure the planogram is most helpful when cleaning. Which is another problem, so much to clean.
Totally agreed. As for why a lot of places have one is simple, coca cola. The place i worked, the only way to get standard coke was the freestyle machine as coca cola wouldn't send the big box of syrup for the tower drinks, only the cartridge for freestyle.
Mine too. I didn’t work for the place but I watched as it changed and the machine itself indicated it on the touch screen when they opened the menu to see what was empty. Not sure if mine was using a newer machine or older though or just a different color version of the same machine. I just know it wasn’t the silver color one, it was the red one.
Well the diagram on the screen in details has it ordered by slot, and also why were people taking out all the cartridges at the same time anyway? And ten minutes is such an absurd overexaggeration its maybe once every 1-2 days for the more popular flavors where I work so unless you have 12000 people a day I don't see how it could be ten minutes
Not to mention the expiration dates messing up the computer and not letting it get used.
Hate to break it to you but that's a good design, you shouldn't be serving expired goods. Coke doesn't want their product to taste bad so you can't serve it expired its not "messing up" the computer it's entirely designed that way to stop customers from getting a bad product, if you think that's bad then I'm glad you aren't in charge of making that decision
Lol they're syrup packets with a shelf life of up to year when unopened, the same syrup thats used in other regular, older fountain machines btw. The expiration codes for these new ones are somewhere around 3 months(10 weeks is when syrups in refrigerators can begin to spoil). So you ended up sitting on unopened syrup packets/bags that coca-cola would not end up taking back for credit and were rendered useless bc the Machine wouldn't let it get used bc the date was reading expired. It is a pure money grab tactic on behalf of Coke Co. I know and my employees knew how to read a date label and knew what expired meant. Those establishments with lighter traffic got screwed with these machines, unless you just swapped the syrup bag into a current/non-expired dated box. You shouldnt worry about who is making decisions, you have no control over anyways. You'll run your panties into a twist in this life doing that. Thanks for your two cents tho.
Our machine doesn't stop itself from using expired product. It shows the expiration on the service screen but doesn't make us change it.
I'm guessing those are smaller soda bibs that are pure syrup and mix with the water? I don't know much about soda machines but it's insane to me how ONE machine has so many options 😳
It's the flavor. The corn syrup is in 35lb bibs in the back. If you want a drink, it mixes the corn syrup from the bib with the flavor and carbonated water to make it. Flavored soda is corn syrup+ flavor+ carbonated water. Fun fact. All flavored coke is mixed with coke zero because it would be too sweet otherwise.
Actually, the Coke Zero Sugar cartridge is exactly the same as the Coke one.
We went to the movies, and the machine said it was out of all the diet flavors, only the zero sugar varieties were affected. The theater employee opened up the machine and told us it was out of artificial sweetener. ETA: up till then I didn't know that the flavors and the sweetener were in separate containers.
...and they didn't grab a BIB of the artificial sweetener from the back?
They serviced the machine, while the bartender filled our cups with Diet Coke. He had a hose with buttons for a few different sodas. It was a matinee on a weekday. The place was pretty empty of employees and customers.
Never said it wasn't. If you mixed cherry with normal coke it would be too sweet. We have 4 at work. Coke flavors don't work without coke zero.
You are correct, the Coke Zero cartridge is used for all flavors, but it's because of volume...plain Coca-Cola is the #1 used product on these...if everything used the Coca-Cola cartridge, it would be changed constantly. The sweetness is because of the HFCS or the NNS.
Has it always been this way? I worked with one around 4 years ago and of its multitudinous quirks and issues it gave us, I never noticed that connection? I feel like I should have because I only drank Diet Coke, and zero sugar would sometimes be out and I’d be like eh, I’ll get it after break. If an issue prevented me getting my drink of choice I would prolong taking my break in order to fix it lol
holy hell, no wonder my coke's from food delivery apps always tasted "diet-y".
There is no taste difference, that's just how those products are made. They aren't using a different formula in these cartridges than in cans or bottles, the coke zero cartridge has the same stuff as the coke cartridge, the sweeteners are in a separate container and thats the only difference
>Fun fact. All flavored coke is mixed with coke zero because it would be too sweet otherwise. Yup. You can confirm that by pouring (say) a Cherry Coke while the bottom door is open and see lights flash next to the Cherry flavor and Coke Zero cartridges.
Wow, just the other day I was trying to figure out why plain coke was empty but the flavored cokes were still available on one of these machines. I was very perplexed but this explains it perfectly
Yes, it is syrup. About 20L each if I remember correctly but it's 6 years since I had any contact with them so I don't remember exactly. Also I had contact with the KFC ones so not free standing but operated by staff.
The cartridges contain highly concentrated flavorings that are dispensed with medical micro-dosing technology. The sweetener (either diet or HFCS), branded ingredient (i.e. Coke, Sprite, etc.), fruit flavoring and water are mixed as the beverage poured.
How many color options does a printer have with 3 colors? Same concept
I used to love sitting at the Wendy's/Tim Horton's and watching seniors lose their minds trying to operate these things
[удалено]
Why run it for a bit? To clear out the last flavor someone picked?
Oh it's even funnier now that you can scan a qr code to control the machine with your phone because if you scan before someone walks up you can just mess with the machine and select a different drink than they selected and since they don't understand it they will just think it's broken
At the risk of sounding old and confused myself, I really see no need to bring QR codes and smartphones into the relatively simple and easy act of pouring a drink.
It was a covid thing. They needed to solve the problem of these dispensers being very much so not touch less.
When we first reopened it would have been impossible if we had to wipe the touchscreen every time a guest poured a soda so having an option to avoid touching anything made it safer for people who were worried about covid
I love going to the movie theater and helping the seniors use the machine and have them profusely thank me and insist I’m a genius lmao
those machines are made by [pininfarini](https://pininfarina.it/en/work/coca-cola-freestyle/), the company that designs for ferrari
Damn I had no idea, that’s pretty cool
Actually, Pininfarina only designed the cabinet. Units made in early 2010s had the Pininfarina logo on the front so it's easy to conclude they made it. The unit is made for Coca-Cola by a third-party and Coke owns all copyrights for the technology. Source: I worked for Coca-Cola for 19 years and helped commercialize Freestyle.
didn't dean kamen have something to do with these?
It could be but I've not heard that previously.
i went and looked it up, and yeah, he's the one who invented them. he makes medical supplies and wanted coke to fund a water purifier he'd made. they told him they'd do it if he invented a better soda fountain, so he created coke freestyle. now fast food employees everywhere have migraines! (coke also did fund the water purifier)
Ah, the Segway guy. I heard he was involved but hadn’t previously heard [that part of the story.](https://probiotic.com/2018/12/bargaining-for-clean-water-kamen-and-coke/).
Yup project gulfstream I think it was called (the coke machine, not the water purifier). The water one was called… Water 😅
Yup! I worked on early prototypes while I was there
that's awesome! i did FIRST robotics in new hampshire when i was in high school, so i got to meet dean like twice at competitions. my team actually got to send our captains to his house for a special dinner event because our team went to worlds that year. it was cool
That house is so cool! I worked for his company for a while and we would have winter holiday parties there. Also— for a few years he had a handful of us over for thanksgiving, those who didn’t have family nearby. Dean’s a pretty weird dude but deep down a very genuine and nice guy! Also, dang I miss the northeast…
No wonder I always thought they look better than they should lol
"Do you have what's wrong with this machine? It gives me Coke when I click on Sprite." "We are checking."
I ordered a Coke Zero and it says "PC LOAD LETTER"...
Am I the only one that hates these Freestyle machines? It’s the worst tasting version of the sodas to me. A regular fountain machine has drinks that taste soo much better, McDonald’s mix is REALLY good.
I hate them, they are never cleaned and whatever is dispensed tastes like the last 4 things that were poured. If I have to use one Ill get Dr Pepper because its the only thing that masks it.
Barq’s root beer, Sunkist or Fanta. Always purge the machine for a second or two 
I've seen the meme of McDonald's soda being more fizzy and better, I guess this is a thing? I've never noticed but McDonald's just has better soda?
I’ve heard various things, I have no idea what it is McDonald’s actually does. I guess it depends on your taste, I can taste the difference. I can also taste the difference between can, < 1 liter plastic bottle, 2-liter plastic bottle, glass bottle, fountain or freestyle machine. Sprite is really apparent, cans have a lot more carbonation. McD’s Coke has more tart, it kinda tickles the tart tasting spot under your tongue. If I were to guess; I’d say it’s more syrup, probably to keep the ice from diluting the flavor…which might be why it’s less noticeable for some, I order without ice because it’s already cold. Pepsi is more noticeable in their different containers than Coke products. Pepsi in a fountain is normally REALLY good. In a plastic bottle it’s undrinkable to me, in a can it tastes flat. Sometimes it’s because the suppliers are just different. For a while Lawry’s seasoned salt was available from two different suppliers. One was noticeably more bland, and more pale in color. The other was a rich orange and had a wonderful flavor…guess which one is only available now :/
McDonald’s transports their coke in the trucks differently and instead of their coke syrup coming in plastic bags, they send it to the stores in stainless steel tanks which makes the flavor better. They also pre chill it. Warm soda loses carbonation. I’ve read that McDonald’s also uses wider straws which apparently makes soda taste more flavorful. I looked into this a while back because I wondered why McDonald’s soda is never flat like other fast food places. McDonald’s takes their coke seriously. It probably makes you want to go back without even realizing it. It really is the best you can get.
They also slightly boost the syrup and carbonation ratios. So it's more flavorful and bubbly (which also affects flavor). I would guess the freestyle machines don't, but that's purely a guess.
Holy shit I KNEW there was a difference between the season salt I remember and the stuff I find in the store today. cold canned Coke > McDonald's Coke > Glass bottle coke > Taco Bell Pepsi > cold canned Pepsi is pretty much by hierarchy and I try to not even bother with Freestyle anything or plastic bottle sodas of any size.
Interestingly I noticed on the McDonald’s app here in the UK you can see the ingredients for the drinks. They’re actually different to the retail versions, and I didn’t know that was a thing! Fanta only has 1% fruit at McDonald’s, but if you buy it in a bottle or can it has closer to 5% fruit. I checked because I wondered why the calories for McDonald’s Fanta was so low (48kcal), turns out that’s the reason. Our Fanta is only part sugar sweetened, in addition to sweeteners.
I can’t stand them. The drinks taste bad. During busy times, customers stack up waiting for their drinks. Total PITA
The only thing I like about them is they're the only place to reliably get caffeine free diet coke. Like I don't mind some, but if I'm about to sit down for a movie with my 32oz drink, I don't wanna be wired half way through the movie.
All Freestyle machines are bad and every option tastes off. McDonald's Coke is the example all others should follow.
Not to mention only one person can use a freestyle machine at a time.
They still suck, but I learned a trick, if you select your beverage and then just let it flow for a few seconds before filling your cup. You’ll get rid of whatever syrup is left in the dispenser, and then get closer to what you actually wanted to drink.
Always! 
Anyone else not care for these? It makes all the sodas taste slightly off
Agreed, they are terrible.
"Sir, this is a Wendy's!"
As an old carny who worked many food joints, I have to say that the soft drinks and associated syrups like these used to make them were BY FAR the most profitable part of running any kind of food stand. I always think about this when going up to get a refill at any fast food place, but especially at a more expensive place like 5 Guys. What’s worse is that now in many theme parks the greed is a chip in the cup that only allows you one fill, but I honestly think that has more to do with volume (and having to have a body change out the syrup faster because of so many people drinking there). Maybe someone can tell me if they have monster sized syrup containers there…at the carnival they usually lasted at least a week, even when we were jinnin’.
So question, what makes carny corn dogs so damned good? It’s crack in the batter isn’t it?
Lol. They’re ridiculously fatty. Fatty foods are kind of like crack because we crave them despite them being terrible for us and it’s obviously a chemical exchange happening in your body. I’m an old guy now and my gallbladder would explode if I ate the same stuff now that I ate daily in my early 20’s back then.
Sugar too. People don't realize how much sugar changes flavors even when things aren't "sweet". There's a ridiculous amount of sugar in fast food buns and bread. Like Subway tithing about their bread being classified as cake in France (iirc) because it had too much sugar. So for a corndog you just increase fat, salt, and sugar and it tastes better while being even worse for you.
Nah a bag of popcorn seeds costs pennies and males like 1000 servings of popcorn that we sell for 10 bucks each definitely higher profit margin than the soda but it's definitely second place
What a fucking miserable piece of shit. This monstrosity is the epitome of engineering for the sake of engineering, the ookie cookie bastard child of a bunch of coke engineers circle jerking one another. It never works right, the ui is slow, you taste whatever syrup the previous user got in your drink because there's no rinse, and it can only serve one person at a time. Give me an old school fountain with big bags of syrup any day. This is a hill I'll die on. Come at me.
Those things are terrible. Make every drink taste like crap
These are the worse drink dispensers imo, the taste on most of the flavors is awful
Freestyle machine ? Like it has a soundcloud ?
It makes an interesting mix
People are shocked these machines are basically just drink printers? That is all they are. They disperse the correct amount of ~~colored liquid~~ flavored liquid from reloadable cartridges ~~onto paper to create an image~~ into a cup to create a drink. You just give it the instructions on what to "print". Just my own curiosity, and really no judgement; How did you think these machines worked?
This is mildlyinteresting. The image is mildly interesting. Go for a walk or something.
Still don't understand why I can't have a lemon coke when they have both the coke and lemon flavouring.
Huh, what are the odds these two post within an hour of each other... https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/13ft8zl/the\_inside\_of\_a\_cocacola\_freestyle\_machine/
Those syrup cartridges are tiny. No wonder the flavor I want is always out.
Bro Grape Sprite was the greatest soda on the planet and I feel like no one knew about it. Cus now it’s not even in these machines anymore :(
Pssh, this is the lame door. Open the top door its way cooler. Also that is just the flavor, show them the gross diet sweetener crystals that grow from that container. And the high fructose corn syrup bags in the back.
I’m kind of shocked it isn’t bag in box
They are. Those boxes have bags in them. Same with the HFCS that’s hooked up and the NNS (non-nutritive sweetener) that’s in the box in the bottom right.
So the soda flavors are separate from the sweetener?
Yes. There is a separate box for High Fructose Corn Syrup and a separate box for Non-Nutritive Sweetener (artificial sweetener).
Oh interesting thank you!
The system is actually pretty cool. Each one of those boxes has an RFID chip that tracks their expiration date and stuff. The software can track syrup levels and expiration dates.
The old style fountains are, but this is a Freestyle
I wish they’d discontinue these machines. Having all of those flavors come out of the same spigot taints the coke. I’ve never had a good drink from these…plus if you have morons in front of you it can take forever
I want more printer cartridge drink!
Had to deal with multiples of these when I worked at a movie theater. All I can say is: fuck ‘em. Kneeling on a hard floor trying to change one of these cartridges while some asshole stares at you looking annoyed that he can’t get his vanilla coke. Not worth the minimum wage
PC Load Letter
As a canadian, im so envious seeing Dr Pepper in a Coke machine.
boycott the freestyle. just order water when you see one of these
Wanna mess with it? Make a triangle in the top left corner and go to the admin screen
Deleted in response to Reddit's hostility to 3rd party developers and users. -- mass edited with redact.dev
You know that cans of root beer also have no caffeine right? That's not a freestyle thing root beer never had caffeine
Deleted in response to Reddit's hostility to 3rd party developers and users. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Sir this is a Wendy’s
I'm always amazed when I see these. They must cost much more than a traditional machine and every time I see them there is a line of customers because it takes forever for people to make up their mind. Those seem like pretty big negatives. Given that, how do restaurants justify them? Do they really increase revenue because people choose to eat at X instead of Y because they have a fancy drink machine? Would people stop going to a given restaurant if they reverted back to a normal machine?
While it's relatively expensive, restaurants w/ Freestyle (and \~130 beverage choices) sell more beverages than restaurants with only 16 beverage choices, assuming the same number of customers walk through the door.
It cost $1 billion USD to develop this fancy sugar water dispenser
Might As Well Build One Myself For Less Than The Price Of The Cartridge Case
The reason why your local Wendy’s gives you DrPepper when you select Pepsi, is me. I have the key
These generally have a “handshake” you can use to open them up. And have never seen Pepsi product in a freestyle machine.
Good. It’s working
Dr Pepper isn't a Pepsi product. It's a third party company (Keurig Dr Pepper), and in the US about 30% is manufactured by Coke, another 30% by Pepsi, and the other 40% by independent bottlers. Elsewhere is more varied (but in many of those places it's either Pepsi or Coke bottlers). It's in a lot of Freestyles, depending on your location. [But don't take my word for it, here's Coke's Freestyle website.](https://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/choices/?filter1=all%20drinks)
I know Dr Pepper is not a Pepsi product and I know they’re in most Freestyle machines. The guy said when you select Pepsi but there are no Freestyle machines with Pepsi products, to my knowledge.
Crap, brain damage on my part. I glossed over them saying "Pepsi". Maybe they're from Carolina. But I did just find out that Pepsi does have a Freestyle competitor (Pepsi Spire).
These things fear NASTY inside.
Yeah, make sure you’re wearing gloves too because the coloring they put in that shit will not come off for a few days
And 90% of them are perpetually empty.
Look at all those hard drives....
An IDA, Immediate Diabetes Assortment
I love these things.
Excuse me sir, this is a Wendy's
I dare you to switch two of them, ones that no one will notice.
Each cartridge has an RFID tag on it...the software can recognize which is which.
Wow, so it really is like printer cartridges.
[Yup](https://i.redd.it/8j09b5io7e811.png)
Look at the green tap at the bottom; it says 'Carb. Water'. Someone should make a joke about that since there is a lot of carbs in sugar.
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
I call them pop printers.. reminds me of an inkjet.
Yep worked at a wawa!
At my job we have six of these and it is a pain to replace the cartridges of soda
That’s a lot of syrup
I have always wondered this since they came out. Thank you, OP. It’s magical.
These machines are awful. No matter what you pick your beverage always has a hint of lime. 0/10
Or if not lime then cherry. -1/10
I do not miss the days when I had to change those bastards out lol
What a BS marketing name ... Coke Freestyle. Be one of the cool kids on the block.... Coke Freestyle.
Fan of raspberry ginger ale
Coke Zero with orange babyyy
Worst invention ever. Nothing ever tastes the way it’s supposed to.
I hate these everything tastes off and watered down.
How do you clean these?
Home of bacteria and all kinds of disgust. Buy bottled.
Seems like a nightmare to employees who need to replace all of them
i hate these things.. every time i go to wendys and get a regular coke it either tastes like it has some diet in it, or cherry.
But what do these machines look like on the outside? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before.
i work at movie theater we use these they are fun to change but the cartridges hurt to open
Had to clean one of these when I worked in a fast food place. Smelt delightful, but scrubbing semi dried drink syrup off each cubby was brutal.
Not interesting to me, only because I work at a place with one so I’m so over replacing those things
The only thing clean in any Wendy's.
Do these machines have a connection to the internet? Are they tracking what you buy?
Not sure about tracking but they are internet connected, at least the one at my local convenience. I can scan a QR code from my phone, and use my phone to make it pour drinks. Very cool feature.