Can you make flavored plastic?
That was the question that led Corey Capasso to do some research and eventually get help from Tim Osswald, a University of Wisconsin plastics expert, to achieve his mission.
They created a plastic capable of emitting flavors, including raspberry and lemon, that can be used to sweeten everything from baby pacifiers to water bottles.
The venture, called Add the Flavor, will sell flavored plastic pellets to manufacturers. As he waits for his first sale, Capasso says Add the Flavor has received four letters of intent from several manufacturers interested in the new technology since the first sales efforts launched in May 2008, and he plans to break $1 million in sales by the second quarter of 2009. As for safety, he says the plastic conforms to FDA guidelines and is the same type used in toys and food packaging.
Now a senior at Wisconsin studying finance, Capasso says balancing the company with homework comes down to energy management: “You have to know what needs to be done and what it’ll take out of you.”
Photo by BusinessWeek.
Angela on September 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I could imagine there will be a lot of arguments against this, but I think it’s great! How many of us can say we were able to transfer an idea from curiosity to potential success?
The real question is, how long does the flavor stay in the plastic? Would a product have a long flavor life or would the plastic lose its flavor quickly?
CoolProducts on September 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
With all of the BPA controversy going on with current plastics, I think that although potentially this is a good idea, Add the Flavor needs to make sure its product is safe and then market that fact. Great idea though, and if proven safe, I feel this could really be a hit!
cassy on September 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Flavored plastic? sounds new to me and I can’t wait to buy this kind of product and try to taste it lol joke but anyway I think this is good idea aside its useful I’m sure people has curiosity about the “flavor” and when they are curious surely they gonna buy it.