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Warning over lead in coffee vending machines

Lead levels up to ten times above recommended levels have been found in the water from coffee vending machines in Sweden.

Published: 26 January 2011 08:18 CET
Warning over lead in coffee vending machines

The measurements were carried out on coffee machines at the Stockholm-based Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institutet and on those found at a construction company, Sveriges Television (SVT) reports.

The lead was found to be leaking from brass components in the coffee machines, leading to lead levels of up to 150 microgrammes per litre of water.

According to Sweden’s National Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket), the upper-limit of acceptable levels of lead in drinking water is 10 microgrammes per litre.

Prolonged exposure or ingestion of lead can cause damage to the nervous system, as well as blood and brain disorders. Lead exposure can also cause developmental problems for unborn children and lead to miscarriages.

Following the tests, the IMM has issued a warning to all Swedish workplaces to check the lead levels in the water found in their coffee vending machines.

The measurements have so far been carried out on one model of coffee vending machine, the Arena 4010 manufactured by De Jong Duke and rented out to Swedish workplaces by Café Bar in Norrköping in eastern Sweden.

The company has rented out 1,5000 Arena 4010 coffee machines across the country, corresponding to approximately 1 percent of the 95,000 to 100,000 coffee vending machines in Sweden, according to Benny Petersson from Svenska vendingföreningen, a vending machine industry organisation.

“We view this with the utmost seriousness,” he told the TT news agency.

“But we should also bear in mind that several random tests on this type of machine didn’t show high lead levels and that the machines aren’t especially common.”

According to the National Food Administration, there are strict requirements that equipment used to handle food not leak lead to the extent revealed in the IMM tests.

“It’s quite striking and not acceptable, even if this was found in a single study,” Jan Sjögren, head of agency’s inspection support division, told TT.

He recommends that all companies who rent or distribute coffee vending machines in Sweden now test the water in their machines for elevated levels of lead.

“There’s every reason think again. We’re a nation of coffee drinkers and this it’s not acceptable that we are ingesting lead unnecessarily like this,” said Sjögren.

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FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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