As business concepts morph and change, new trends are continue to emerge. In recent years this has included an increasing number of bakeries turning to vending machines to help improve accessibility to their product range while effectively removing all time barriers.

Imagine this: you’ve travelled for hours and are tired and hungry, but all the stores around you are closed. Then, you come across a magical sight – a vending machine stocked with fresh baked goods available at the touch of a button.

In recent years this has become an increasingly common addition for businesses looking to expand both the availability and reach of their products without the requirement of additional storefronts or longer operational hours and staffing.

While this concept has been a popular one for a number of years across Europe, the US and Asia, here in Australia vending machines stocked with baked goods have only become a common sight in recent years.

It was just in 2021 that The Mason Baker launched their Cupcake ATM in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, which sold a wide variety of cakes packaged in jars to ensure long-term freshness, while more recently Brooki Bakehouse began trialling a vending machine stocked with their cookies within the Brisbane International Airport Terminal.

At the launch Brooki Bakehouse founder Brooke Bellamy said the vending machine would give her treats global reach.

“Being able to offer them to travellers at the International Terminal means visitors can get a true taste of Queensland and take a little piece of Brisbane wherever in the world they go,” she said to Brisbane Airport.

“Customers are always coming into our flagship store and buying boxes of cookies to take home to family and friends. It made us realise there was a real opportunity to make Brooki cookies accessible to international travellers departing Brisbane Airport.”

The vending machines were located throughout Melbourne

Setting the scene

Kate Matheson has always forged her own path within the baking industry.

The Cake Creations by Kate founder established the Melbourne-based business in 2015 when she was just 18 years old.

By 2023 she had already taken the next major business step by rolling out Cake Creations by Kate vending machines across the city. It was an innovative move, and one that helped to pave the way for the burgeoning trend within the industry.

Kate said she had become intrigued by the concept after seeing vending machines while on holiday in the US.

“I absolutely loved it. I was so excited to purchase a cupcake from a machine in LA and thought we need to have some more fun in Australia with the way we sell our products,” Kate said.

“It took one to two years to trial different brand machines, test products and do research… to try and work out what will work and what won’t.

“In the end it was still a risk as I knew the vending machine market for boutique food products was very new in Australia. [But] I knew we had a strong brand, that people already knew and trusted our product, which helped me make the leap.”

As part of her research, Kate travelled to both China and Italy to compare machines before purchasing one, and had the initial aim of rolling out a total of 10 vending machines around Melbourne, each of which would be stocked daily with fresh handmade cupcakes, macarons, cookies and “Kate’s Choccies”.

The response to the vending machines was immediate. Behind the scenes, however, Kate and the Cake Creations by Kate team had their work cut out for them ensuring enough products were being made to keep both the stores and vending machines well-stocked.

Kate said despite their detailed planning, the addition of the vending machines did add significantly to the overall workload, particularly as they had no previous consumer data to build on. This meant in some cases they were either selling out and leaving customers upset, or baking too much and being left with food waste.

“It took some time to regulate and work out the averages,” Kate said.

“[In the kitchen] it was a big adjustment for us, as it increased our baking and packaging a lot. It also took a lot more time than I first thought to pack them all, deliver, refill and update the data for the machine.

“We also had issues in the beginning with a cheaper machine, that wasn’t operating as needed, so we upgraded to a higher quality, Italian made machine, which was a lot better.”

Then, there were the challenges associated with the packaging.

Kate said it became clear during the testing phase that some items didn’t dispense well, and so they had to source and purchase new packaging for some products.

“This was very time consuming and costly. We kept testing until we got it perfect, and then bulk ordered the new packaging,” she said.

However, despite these challenges, Kate said the experience was, overall, incredibly positive and one that she would recommend to other bakeries.

“I think it is a great idea, and still has a lot of potential. As we see more roll out in Australia I feel like the trust is growing with customers and it is becoming more normal,” she said.

“I think it is worth a shot, as long as you keep up your marketing so people know the product inside. There is lots of great viral content ideas you can do with the machine, which will help social media growth and brand presence.”

Despite their success, in June 2025, Kate announced Cake Creations by Kate was selling their vending machines. It’s a move, she said, that ultimately enabled her to make more space within her business for its next stage.

“I knew it was taking a big chunk of the business’s time. I wanted to have some time off to have a baby, so it’s all aligned for me to sell them and reduce our workload,” she said.

Bucks Country Bakehouse uses the vending machine to extend their operating hours

Making products accessible

Bucks Country Bakehouse co-owners Will and Lauren Wright made the decision to install a frozen pie vending machine outside their regional Victoria bakery in 2025, after an increasing number of customers expressed a desire to be able to buy pies outside of the bakery’s operating hours.

It was the perfect solution for the family-run bakery, but one that, Will said, they thought about seriously for a while before taking the leap.

“We only open four-days-a-week, and we’d constantly have people stopping by on the other days wanting pies. So we started thinking, ‘how do we make Bucks available seven-days-a-week without actually opening seven-days-a-week?’,” he said.

“We’d seen vending machines used overseas and thought it could work really well for pies. From the initial idea to getting the machine installed and everything working properly [it] took a few months.”

One of the biggest considerations for Will and Lauren was that they wanted the vending machine to be reliable, work well and be a positive addition to the business, rather than a gimmick.

Then, there were other factors to consider like temperature control – as it was being used for frozen pies – and the ability to fit the pie packs as well as ease of use for customers. Will said because the vending machine was accessible 24-hours-a-day, it was also vital they could keep an eye on it remotely.

“Once you’re running something 24/7 without staff standing beside it, reliability becomes really important,” he said.

“We also had to think about packaging differently because the product needs to be protected, clearly labelled and easy for people to take home.”

These days, the vending machine is treated as another Bucks Country Bakehouse shopfront. From a production perspective more pies are definitely needed, and Will said he and his team have to bake specifically for the machine each week, and it was a work in progress trying to balance what is needed for the shop and what is allocated to the pie ATM.

The pies varieties stocked are rotated regularly, depending on what’s available and what people are enjoying at the time, while at times production is ramped up to keep up with demand.

“We usually try to keep a good mix of our bestsellers in there – things like chunky steak; steak and pepper; steak, bacon and cheese; steak and mushroom; lamb and rosemary; and butter chicken,” Will said.

“We like having some classics in there, but also a few of the flavours that Bucks is known for.

“There’s definitely been times when the pies have sold quicker than we expected – especially after media coverage or on busy weekends. The thing people forget is that someone has to make all those pies. They’re not coming off a factory line somewhere, they’re the same Bucks pies our bakers are making for the bakery.”

In fact, Will said this last aspect was perhaps the most important one to keep in mind when considering a vending machine.

“I’d say don’t start with the machine – start with the product,” he said.

“Make sure your product actually suits vending, and think about how it’s going to be stored, packaged and dispensed. Then, invest in the things that matter: good refrigeration, a reliable payment system and remote monitoring.

“We’ve also noticed the machine isn’t as busy on the days we are open, so if we were a seven-day business I’m not sure we would have the same results.”