Pennsylvania supermarket pulls plug on wine kiosks

Shoppers at Wegmans supermarkets in Pennsylvania will no longer be able to buy wine through automated kiosks, as the Rochester, New York-based grocery chain has cancelled an agreement to sell wine through the machines at 10 of its stores.

The supermarket said in a statement: "We had hoped that our customers would find the kiosks to be a valuable addition to their shopping experience, but that proved not to be the case.

“They want the convenience of purchasing wine in a supermarket, but found the choice of items too limited in the kiosk."

It is not yet clear whether the kiosks will be moved to other stores.

This leaves 22 wine-vending kiosks in operation in Pennsylvania, with another 24 potential locations at Walmart stores.

Since the state’s first pilot machines were trialed a year ago, people have used them to buy more than 82,000 bottles of wine at total cost of US$875,000.

Over the last few years, the Liquor Control Board has embarked on an aggressive strategy to operate more like a private business and less like a bureaucracy.

The agency has spent tens of thousands of dollars on boosting its wine selection, and training employees to be more customer-friendly. It has also opened upmarket stores to cater to a more discerning crowd.

The kiosk programme was launched last summer as a way to make it easier for consumers to do one-stop shopping. But there have been problems: in order to purchase wine from the machines, customers have to have their driver’s licence scanned and blow into a breathalyser.

Lucy Shaw, 06.06.2011