The local company Vesa, a leading Czech breeder and potato grower, took care of an unusual hit for tourists and residents in Velhartice in the Klatovy region. It has installed a unique vending machine here, where people can buy fresh potatoes grown in Velhartice without serving after inserting coins.
The potato machine has already become an attraction and is sold daily through a meter of potatoes, Viktor Kopačka, the director of a company with more than 60 years of tradition, told ČTK.
“We are adjacent to Velhartice Castle and we breed potato varieties, which we also sell. A lot of people go to the castle around us, so we took it as such promotion of our varieties. We sell only what we grow here,” said Kopačka.
The Suzan variety is currently on sale, followed by Magda and then another variety according to the harvest. The machine can sell only one variety. “We didn’t invest a lot of money in it, we did it very easily,” said the director.
The potato machine does not look like ordinary vending machines, it is not a tin cabinet with potatoes inside. The sale is set at two pounds of potatoes. Customers come to the barn door, from which the pipe emerges. They take a prepared paper bag, toss exactly 30 crowns into the coin box, and fresh potatoes are poured into the set bag into the tube. Inside the barn is a belt weigher that weighs two pounds of crop, and when the customer tosses a coin on the other side of the door, the belt transports the weighed potatoes to the mouth of the pipe.
According to Kopačka, over 60 purchases are made daily. “A lot of tourists and locals go there and they are probably satisfied with the quality and taste of our potatoes,” he said. According to him, the idea with a vending machine for potatoes was primarily to arouse people’s interest in Czech products, local food and also to remind them that they can also buy potatoes for storage in Velhartice in the autumn.
“It was meant for people to taste our potatoes and find that they are tasty. Of the range of varieties that are on the Czech market, about 80 percent are foreign and only 20 percent Czech. We think we have good varieties that would they should consume more at home, “Kopačka added. The Velhartice company, which farms on approximately 430 hectares of agricultural land, has bred dozens of potato varieties during its existence.
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