‘I attempted viral merchandising machine that sells sausages, eggs and milk – one factor about it was unreal’
Shop with no staff felt odd but I bought two milkshakes, a cooked chicken, a chicken pie, Scotch eggs and some cookies, spending just under £40, and it all tasted delicious
Viral vending machine instead it offers sausages, eggs, milk and even homemade chicken pies.
A very unusual vending machine has been the talk of the town on TikTok. Nestled in the heart of the Kent countryside, it doesn’t sell chocolate bars and bottles of water – instead it offers sausages, eggs, milk and even homemade chicken pies.
Megan Carr took her parents on a trip to The Egg Machine to see if it could really be worth the hype.
Pulling up just before 7pm on a Saturday felt slightly odd at first. The car park was empty, nobody was about, we’d arrived at a working farm in the middle of a quiet village. But true to its word, the place was open.
Inside a shed like building was a giant refrigerated unmanned vending machine packed with local produce behind numbered little doors. Eggs, milk, sausages, tray bakes, brownies, apple juice, cooked meats, cookies, the lot.
Using it was actually really easy. You type the numbers of the items you want into a keypad, add them to your basket and then once you pay, all the little doors pop open together so you can collect everything. There was even a coffee machine tucked in the corner and a number to call if anything went wrong.
While I spent ages trying to decide what to get, two locals wandered in, grabbed milk and eggs and were gone within about 30 seconds, and I felt that the interaction summed the place up perfectly. For them, it is clearly just a handy village shop. For people like me, it has somehow become a tourist attraction thanks to TikTok.
We ended up leaving with two milkshakes, a cooked chicken, a chicken pie, Scotch eggs and some cookies, spending just under £40 altogether. Now, I know some people will instantly look at that and think it sounds expensive, especially when the pie was £12 and the cooked chicken was £14. And yes, initially I did too.
But then we actually ate the food, and the steep price became easier to swallow.
The next evening, my mum cooked the pie with mash, swede, peas, carrots and cabbage and honestly, it was unreal. Without exaggerating, it is probably one of the best pies I have ever had, and my parents agreed.
When I first picked it up, I noticed straight away that it weighed an absolute ton, and I assumed most of that would just be sauce because that is usually how chicken pies work. Not this one. It was absolutely stuffed with filling. Proper shredded chicken packed in with leek, ham and mushrooms from edge to edge with barely any empty space inside.
And the pastry deserves its own mention because it was buttery, rich and actually held together instead of instantly exploding into crumbs the second you touched it. The £12 price tag made complete sense. Honestly, I would drive back there just for that pie alone. The cooked chicken was nice too. The following day we had it cold with salad and jacket potatoes, the perfect British summer dinner.
It was moist, tasty and there was loads of it, more than enough for a big family meal or plenty of leftovers that could be used for a couple of days.
But if I am being completely honest, this was probably the one thing where I still slightly struggled with the price. To me, £14 felt a bit much, even for farm shop produce. That said, you are paying for more than just the chicken itself. It is local produce, sold directly on site, available 24/7 and as part of the whole vending machine experience.
The cookies were lovely as well and had that proper homemade feel. We picked up a mix including chocolate chip, double chocolate and one we think was raisin.
My parents also really liked the Scotch eggs, saying they actually had plenty of filling, unlike some supermarket ones. The only thing that slightly disappointed us was the milkshakes. I had banana while my dad went for chocolate, and while neither of us are milkshake experts, the flavours were too subtle for our liking.
These are definitely more flavoured milk than thick dessert-style milkshakes, which is absolutely fine and what we knew we’d ordered, but we expected a bit more flavour from them. The banana was still pleasant because it was not overly artificial, but the chocolate one especially just needed a bit more richness. Still, that really was a minor complaint overall.
There is just something really fun about standing in the middle of a Kent farm on a Saturday evening, buying pies and milkshakes from a vending machine. It is quirky without feeling gimmicky and, most importantly, the food is actually good enough to justify all the hype online.
And yes, I am still thinking about that pie.
