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.