Photo-Me to launch fresh pineapple juice vending machines at railway stations

Picture booth operator Photo-Me has promised to roll out fresh pineapple and apple juice vending machines to railway stations in the next two years as it looks for new revenue streams following a Brexit blow to its traditional business.

The company said it was looking to expand its offering to customers following the purchase of France’s Sempa earlier this year.

The acquisition added a new string to Photo-Me’s bow, which already includes photo booths, laundry and digital printing vending machines.

Sempa propelled the company into the 154 billion US dollar (£120 billion) global fruit and vegetable juice market, selling juice machines to restaurants, hotels and offices.

But Photo-Me said it plans to expand self-service juice vending machines in railway stations and elsewhere. Earlier this year it bought 150 juice vending machines from a Paris-based company.

They currently only offer “fresh orange juice, though the intention is to extend the product range over time. The development of machines for apple juice and pineapple juice is under way and these are expected to be rolled out in the 2021 financial year,” the company said in a note to the markets on Monday.

It will use the engineers who already service its photo booths to ensure that the juicers are in working order.

The company has diversified its revenues as Brexit weighed on the traditional identification business, which includes thousands of photo booths and biometric identification.

Revenue from the business fell 3.8% in the five months to the end of September. But without the UK it grew 0.2% year on year, driven by better performances in France and Japan.

The news sent shares down around 5.2% to 84.6p early on Monday.

The UK business had also been hit after the Government started allowing people to take passport photos from home on their mobiles.

“Trading in the identification division in the UK remaining challenging. This has been due to continued uncertainty around the UK’s European Union exit negotiations,” the business said.

The best growth was seen in Photo-Me’s laundry business, which includes its launderettes, where revenue was up 23% over the period.