Now trending: meat at your fingertips. Simply insert your credit card into one of these vending machines and receive the butcher’s bounty.

Vending machines are associated with junk foods and a hint of desperation, but all that could change with this idea.

In Paris, just outside of a Basque butcher shop, you can buy their house-cured charcuterie right out of a vending machine any time of the day or night. It’s the first machine of its kind in Paris. Peckish for Jambon de Bayonne at midnight? No need to wait for the shop to open in the AM.

And in Friesing, Germany, Steffen Schütze’s Bavarian butcher shop has a vending machine available after hours, making him a 24/7 butcher. Marinated steaks, a variety of sausages, even garlic butter and potato salad, are there for the hungry carnivore with the push of a button.

What seems like an oddity, or a Japanese fad, is actually a little closer to home than you might think. Will the trend catch on?

In Cle Elum, Washington, a 125-year-old family butcher has launched what they call meat machines. “The Candy Store for the Carnivore” offers beef jerky, bacon and other preserved meats in about 10 vending machines in the area.

And Applestone Meat Company is vending fresh butcher cuts in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. They have refrigerated cases, just like a butcher’s case, freshly stocked each day and carefully monitored for temperature.

And before you ask, yes, we are intrigued by the idea, but have no immediate plans to implement it for our products.

Would you purchase meat from a machine? Do you think meat vending machines will catch on as a concept?  Tell us in the comments, or chat with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Just tag @dartagnanfoods to get the conversation started.