“We hope to move the vending market to CO2 in Europe,” – Steven Van Holsbeek, sales manager at the Benelux branch of SandenVendo, a division of Sanden Europe, told R744.com today at Vending Paris, taking place near Porte de Versailles in the French capital on 15-17 March.
Helping to move the European refrigerated vending market towards climate-friendly technology options is not without its challenges for this CO2-committed company.
Indeed, at Vending Paris, SandenVendo is advertising but not exhibiting its line of CO2-cooled food and drinks vending machines.
“The European vending market is very conservative. Customers are less familiar with CO2 technology”, Van Holsbeek noted.
He contrasts this with the Sanden Corporation’s experience in Japan, where “customers are more familiar with CO2 technology – largely thanks to the influence of big end users like Coca-Cola,” he pointed out.
In Japan, the Coca-Cola Company is currently committed to using natural refrigerants such as CO2 in its vending machines and relies on Sanden equipment to achieve the switch to CO2 there.
“We hope to move the vending market to CO2 in Europe.”
Steven Van Holsbeek, SandenVendo
Cola-Cola helping to drive natural refrigerant uptake
In an exclusive video interview with R744.com, Yoshitoyo Takeuchi, director and COO of Sanden International (Europe) Ltd., explained how the Coca-Cola Company is helping to drive uptake of natural refrigerant-based technologies.
“We’re working with Coca-Cola, and other vending machine manufacturers who use our CO2 compressors, to challenge the next generation of refrigerant changes,” said Takeuchi, who is in charge of business sales and marketing for vending and retail systems.
EU F-Gas Regulation, customer demand could trigger change
One thing is clear: vending machine manufacturers will eventually have to switch to HFC alternatives in Europe. The new EU F-Gas Regulation bans the use of HFCs in new plug-in commercial refrigeration equipment as of 2022.
“We hope the F-Gas Regulation will trigger a change soon,” SandenVendo’s Van Holsbeek told R744.com.
“If a big end user decides to start using CO2 across all their vending machines, this will drive the market by helping to reduce costs,” he said.
