Key takeaways
- A milk on tap machine replaces daily cartons with bulk containers, which empties the bins and frees up storage behind the counter.
- Cutting the drawer-and-pour routine shortens every milk drink, and shorter waits protect how customers rate the whole visit.
- A Flo Smart’s milk on tap machine holds milk at fridge temperature until it reaches the pitcher, which protects shelf life and steaming quality.
A milk on tap machine asks a café to change something that already works. Baristas know the drawer, they know the carton, and that muscle memory costs nothing to maintain. The question deserves a proper answer rather than an assumption.
Three things decide it: what the café throws away, how long each drink takes, and what happens to milk once a carton sits open on a warm bar.
To test all three against real service, we spoke to Mathieu Theis, founder of MAME. The company roasts in Zurich and runs four cafés in the city, alongside two more in Geneva. Mathieu installed a Flo-Smart dispenser in the group’s fourth Zurich site after seeing a demonstration at World of Coffee in Geneva. Read on for his insights.
How much packaging does a milk on tap machine remove?
A milk on tap machine removes the daily carton entirely. Bulk containers feed the system instead, which changes both the bin situation and the storage behind the bar.
The volume surprises people who have never counted it. Mathieu’s teams get through between 20 and 30 one-litre cartons every day at a single site, and all of that cardboard has to go somewhere.
“Most of our bins were full of cardboard and milk cartons,” he says. Cafés that already track their packaging waste will recognise the pattern immediately.
Switching to bulk also changed what MAME pays. The supplier now delivers bags rather than ten separate one-litre cartons, which brings the unit price down a little.
Storage changes as well. Refrigerated drawers hold cartons at the bar, and they carry a high price alongside a large footprint. “Refrigerated drawers cost a lot,” Mathieu says. “Here you do not need them.”
His own setup stays deliberately simple. A basic domestic fridge holds the containers, the team drilled a hole for the tube, and the pumps and pipes sit inside the counter. A slightly deeper counter absorbs the whole system, so the bar keeps its working surface.
Does a milk on tap machine speed up service?
Yes, because it deletes the steps between the fridge and the pitcher. Baristas press a button, the milk lands where they need it, and the drink moves on.
The routine a milk on tap machine replaces looks small until you follow it. “The barista opens the drawer, takes the milk carton, pours what he thinks he needs into the pitcher, then closes the carton and puts it back,” Mathieu says.
None of that reaches the cup. “There is zero added value in taking milk out of a drawer and putting it in a pitcher,” he says. Removing the movement shortens every milk drink on the menu.
Those seconds reach the queue, and the queue reaches the customer. Satisfaction drops sharply once the wait stretches past what customers expected, and that same perception shapes how they rate the quality of the service itself.
Mathieu reaches the same conclusion from behind the bar. “The real argument is that you are much faster in your workflow, so your customers wait less,” he says. He describes the result in one line: “That is the promise, and that is exactly what happens.”
His baristas made their own verdict clear. “Our baristas now ask us to put it in the other shops,” he says, and the team will fit a second unit during next year’s renovation.
Can a milk on tap machine improve hygiene standards?
Yes. A closed system holds milk at fridge temperature right up to the pitcher, so the cold chain never breaks during service.
Open cartons rarely go back where they belong. During a rush, another order always follows, so the carton stays on the counter and slowly warms up. Every café owner has watched this happen on a busy Saturday.
Temperature decides what that costs. Storage conditions matter far more to the growth of spoilage bacteria than the temperature the milk was pasteurised at, and milk that stays at 4°C or below holds off microbial growth for considerably longer than milk kept at 6°C and above.
Warm bars break that chain quickly. Pasteurised milk left at 25°C for six or eight hours loses shelf life against milk kept at 5°C, so every interruption to the cold chain shows up later in the fridge.
Cold milk also performs better in the pitcher, which protects the temperature you steam it at. A milk on tap machine therefore answers a quality question alongside a hygiene one.
For cafés weighing up the same choice, the three answers point in one direction. Emptier bins, shorter waits and colder milk all arrive from the same piece of kit.
To start your Flo-Smart chapter, visit our website or contact us directly.
