Coca-Cola to Market Test Freestyle Touchscreen Fountain Dispenser Integrated RFID and Ultra-Concentrated Cartridges Offer Hundreds of Options

In what seems to be one of the coolest innovations to hit the beverage
industry since New Coke (OK, I'm joking) Coca-Cola has announced that it
will begin market testing of an innovative new fountain drink dispensing
system called the Coca-Cola Freestyle. The Freestyle will enable users
to select from hundreds of different beverage options via an intuitive
touchscreen interface and will lessen the backroom space requirements
for the installers.

The Coca-Cola Freestyle beverage dispenser uses some pretty killer
technology that was originally developed for the kidney dialysis and
cancer treatment markets (treats cancer and quenches thirst…can it
get better?). It has an integrated touch-sensitive LCD screen that walks
you through your beverage selection and since it doesn't rely on the old
carbonation and drink syrup container systems you get a lot more
choices. The Freestyle employs ultra-concentrated 46-oz flavor packets
to produce your drink on the fly and since they are complete with RFID
tags the machine can communicate directly with Coca-Cola HQ to place
orders for supplies and share consumer preference information.

The Coca-Cola Freestyle is only in market test right now, so I wouldn't
expect to see a massive release of them before the end of the year. As
of right now, Coca-Cola has placed machines in California, Utah, and
Georgia. They have plans to have a total of 60 machines in place all
over the country by the end of summer so you just might get lucky enough
to try out a Freestyle for yourself. To see the machine in action click
here.