Hot Lids a Very Cool Idea

November 2, 2005 We’ve discussed the peculiar human trait of heating liquids to boiling temperature and pouring it on the second most sensitive area of our bods once before when we wrote about the ingenious Brugo Travellers mug. Now we’re proposing an equally ingenious solution for the take-away coffee industry – a colour changing disposable beverage lid that indicates the temperature of the liquid inside and clearly indicates that the lid is securely in place. The "smart" lid alerts consumers that the contents are hot by changing from coffee brown to bright red in colour with the colour range designed to indicate the temperature, enabling regular customers to “read” the temperature of their coffee. It’s a small but significant product upgrade, adding significant functionality to the old dumb coffee lid at a price of US$0.01 (a cent to you) per item for the approximately 50 billion take-away cup a year United States marketplace, with the European and Asian take-away coffee markets believed to be of similar magnitude. The company’s product development plans for the subsequent generation of coffee cups are even more ambitious.

« Back to Hot Lids a Very Cool Idea