Perched on a fence by a footpath or a farm track, the honesty box was once the most wholesome way to buy wholesome food, but there was always an obvious flaw. The customers had to be wholesome too, and stump up the cash for their veggies even when no one was watching. Now vending machines selling everything from punnets of strawberries to sacks of potatoes are spreading across the UK as farmers catch on to a global trend that leaves them less reliant on the rectitude of strangers. JSR, a Scottish company that began importing the vending machines in 2015, said that demand had more than doubled this year and there were now 46 in the UK. Stuart Retson, 41, one of JSR’s directors, bought…

Source: The Times September 01, 2017 23:03 UTC