REMOTELY ENABLED AND LOCALLY CONTROLLED USE OF LIQUID MILK IN THE PREPARATION OF HOT AND COLD BEVERAGES BASED ON, OR CONTAINING, LIQUID MILK IN AUTOMATIC BEVERAGE PREPARATION MACHINES OR IN BEVERAGE VENDING MACHINES

摘要

An electronic system to remotely enable and locally control use of liquid milk in the preparation of beverages based on, or containing, liquid milk in beverage vending machines comprising liquid milk supply circuits including one or more disposable components that can be coupled to other disposable components either separably, so as to be individually replaceable apart from the other disposable components, or inseparably, so as to be replaceable together with the other disposable components. The disposable components comprise disposable liquid milk containers and disposable milk lines for fluidically connecting the disposable liquid milk containers to liquid milk, delivery nozzles. The electronic system comprises tags to be associated with disposable spare components usable in beverage vending machines to replace corresponding disposable components that need to be replaced, and storing unique identification data of the associated disposable components and, for disposable liquid milk containers, data indicative of either the expiry date or the use-by date of the liquid milk contained therein. The electronic system also comprises a validation server configured to determine, based on the data stored in the tags, whether the associated disposable spare components meet requisite requirements for replacing corresponding disposable components that need to be replaced and to output corresponding consent or denial notices for the use of the disposable spare components. The electronic system also comprises one or more operator terminals configured to communicate and cooperate with the validation server and with the beverage vending machines to allow replacement of disposable components with corresponding disposable spare components to be managed. The operator terminals are configured to read tags associated with disposable spare components; to communicate with the validation server to send the data read from the tags to the validation server and to receive from the validation server notices of consent or denial to use the associated disposable spare components; to determine, based on the consent or denial notices received from the validation server, whether disposable spare components with which read tags are associated, are usable for replacing corresponding disposable components that need to be replaced; and, if the disposable spare components are determined to be usable, to send the beverage vending machines data indicative of durations of use of the disposable spare components. The beverage vending machines are, finally, configured to receive data indicative of durations of use of disposable spare components from the operator terminals, and to enable the use of disposable spare components, for the corresponding durations of use, in the preparation and delivery of beverages based on, or containing, liquid milk.