Elora Farm sets up roadside fruit vending machine

Fruit vending machine An Elora farm finds a unique way to sell its produce roadside. CTV’s Stephanie Villella explains.

If you’re driving along Wellington Road 17 in Elora, you may come across a fruit stand. However, it’s not just a typical roadside stand – it’s also has a vending machine.

“In Canada, I honestly haven’t seen it before, really,” said Lowell Martin, co-owner of Whiffletree Farm and Nursery.

The vending machine is part of Whiffletree Farm. Martin said he set it up about a month ago, to ensure none of his fruits go to waste.

“We’re trying to make use of the food we have in our orchard and market it directly to the consumer,” he said.

The machine is refrigerated and contains fresh, locally-produced items from Whiffletree and surrounding farms.

“The vending machine has some of our own free reign eggs, some locally made pepperettes, kiwis that we actually get from a local company, some apple juice, some maple syrup. Just about a bit of everything. It’s wide open what we can actually put in there,” Martin said. “If it’s products that has a long shelf life in a fridge, then it stays in it until it sells. Perishables, like vegetables, eggs, and even some fruit. We kind of have to stay on top of it.”

Alongside the vending machine are fresh apples and plums from the farm. Martin said the fruit stand and vending machine has been popular with anywhere from ten to 30 customers daily.

“It’s rather exciting and it’s rewarding to see that it’s actually working and that potentially people have an interest in buying local foods.”

Whiffletree Farm is a nursery that grows and sells fruit trees and plants to other farms across Canada. Martin said the trees are shipped bare root, meaning there is no dirt attached to the root.

“The orchard that we have on our farm here, that orchard is primarily for collecting grafting wood from those trees to then graft and produce more trees. So then we ship out those trees,” he explained. “The fruit is just kind of an extra. So then we thought we should pursue an avenue to have people make use of that.”