Check out the tech at Betty’s Farm Shop!
NEW pictures show what it is like to visit a South Derbyshire farm shop which has been transformed into one of the largest vending machine stores in Europe.
Betty’s Farm Shop, in Willington, has undergone a major revamp which has seen it become a selfservice store, where shoppers pay for their food via a touch-screen before collecting it themselves from automated lockers.
The futuristic family-run shop, which welcomed its first customers in April, stocks fresh produce made on the Castle Way farm, as well as ethically-farmed food from several other local independent producers.
Among the products on offer include the farm’s free-range eggs, fresh bread and cakes, honey, milk and even locally-produced sushi ready-meals.
Once shoppers enter the store, via an automatic sliding door, they select and pay for what they want using a touch-screen and card payment device.
Once paid, locker doors simultaneously pop open and customers help themselves to their shopping.
The main area of the store is for ambient goods. A smaller bank of chilled lockers, with their own touch-screen, flanks the wall at the far end of the shop.
With a combined length of 21 metres (69ft), 400 hundred white lockers are stacked from floor to head height, along two walls.
Lucie Bowler, who founded the business with her brother-in-law Stewart Adams and farm worker Greg Marsh, said: “We took over the egg farm a year ago and wanted an easier way to get our eggs to market. We thought a vending machine would be a great idea.
“And as our plans developed we realised we could sell other farms’ and local suppliers’ produce – 95 per cent of what’s in our lockers comes from Derbyshire and Staffordshire.
“We have a smaller range than a normal shop but it’s all carefully chosen. There’s a lot of stock so we don’t have to restock the lockers each time something is bought. This keeps the manpower to a minimum.
“We’re open 7am to 6pm Tuesday to Saturday and 10am to 4pm on Sundays. We are still learning, and so are our customers. We’re here to help out and explain how everything works. We’ll be opening for longer within the next few weeks.”
Lucie’s father, John “the Egg Man” Bowler, built the farm from scratch nearly 20 years ago, naming it in honour of his mother Betty.
Large wind turbines and banks of solar panels supply all the power to run the egg farm, fridges and the minimalist automated shop.
Fellow business founder Greg added: “The shop’s for everyone. We’ve had builders’ vans and Ferraris in the car park. Children and pensioners, too. It’s simple once they’ve got the hang of it.
“It’s all very modern and high tech but it’s totally sustainable – we generate more electricity than we use. We want to attract local shoppers to buy food from local producers. Covid has changed people’s shopping habits.
“People care more about where their food is coming from and the whole ‘field to fork’ philosophy.”