The Coca-Cola Company

Thomas P Howell

Gerard E Insolia

Steven C Pfister

Ryan West

Willy Van Esch

Brock Kolls

Michael Alan Masters

Mathew Scott Reichardt

Kevin Ward

Carlos A Barreto

A vending machine for dispensing a number of products. The vending machine may include a transparent panel, a number of visible product columns, a number of non-visible product columns, and a product delivery system.

First in first out vending systems

A method of adjusting temperatures of products to a desired product temperature. The method may include enabling the selection of a product, enabling the selection of the desired product temperature, enabling the placement of the product into a temperature adjust device, circulating a liquid or a gas through the temperature adjust device, the liquid or the gas having been cooled to a cool temperature less than the desired product temperature or heated to a warm temperature greater than the desired product temperature, determining when the desired product temperature has been obtained, and ceasing circulation of the liquid or a gas through the temperature adjust device.

Method of adjusting temperatures of products to desired product temperatures

A wide area network (WAN) of vending machines connected to a host that builds a database of vending-related information received from the vending machines. Also, a communications system within each vending machine having a vending machine data acquisition unit and a multiple-communication-technology adapter to interface the data acquisition unit to multiple communication technologies including at least one wireless technology. Also, a data structure used to build the database, the data structure having data elements corresponding to an identity of a machine, recent and previous prediction information for the machine, and recent and previous refill-visit information for the machine, the elements being linked together. The multiple vending machines communicate with a communications concentrator via one of many communication technologies. The communications concentrator interfaces the multiple vending machines to a data warehouse that builds a database using the data structure mentioned above. The data warehouse is made available to one or more bottlers for analysis of individual vending machine routing needs and profitability.

Network of vending machines connected interactively to data-base building host

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Suwanee, GA, United States of America

Thomas P Howell