Vending machines in Japan are often talked about for some of their surprising contents, such as canned curry, pizza, and even high quality dashi. Lately, however, they've been in headlines because of the possibility of using them to provide drinks and meals in the later hours of the evening, especially with restaurants closing early during the pandemic.

Japanese frozen food maker Kenmin Foods, which is known for their Be-fun rice noodles, is hoping to expand on those efforts as well. Their first step towards that is installing a 24-hour operable vending machine stocked with their frozen noodle meals in front of their head office building in Kobe City.

The vending machine will sell a total of five types of frozen rice noodles, including baked rice noodles (2 servings, 500 yen), shrimp and egg rice noodles (2 servings, 500 yen), and a Korean-style fried bean curd japchae (2 servings, 500 yen).

Kenmin will be using Sanden Retail System Corporation's frozen food vending machine "Do Reimono", which has seen expanded use during the pandemic, in hopes of providing frozen noodles for people in the local area. While only one machine is currently installed as a trial run on Kaigan-dori, Chuo-ku, Kobe City (in front of the head office of Kenmin Foods Co., Ltd.), if things go well, they hope to expand more throughout Japan.