A collapsible pocket-sized travel mug has gone into mass production after Omega Plastics joined inventor Andrew Brook to manufacture an ecological answer to takeaway coffee cups.
In November 2016, Andrew Brook, inventor and company director at Pocket Enterprises, launched a campaign through crowdfunding website Kickstarter, to help him raise the £12,000 he needed to bring his concept for the Pokito to life. As word about his campaign spread, Brook secured over £100,000, putting Pokito in the top 1 per cent of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns.
The Pokito is a reusable travel cup which can be adjusted to match the size of the user’s drink (from an espresso to large builders’ brews), designed to collapse when finished with for ease of storage and portability.
Andrew Brook said: “It’s astonishing to think that if you stacked all of the paper cups that are thrown away each day on top of each other, they would be seven times taller than Mount Everest.
“Every day, more than 7 million paper cups are thrown into British bins, 99 per cent of which end up in landfill sites instead of being recycled.
“There are a lot of reusable travel cups already on the market, but many of them are either too big, too heavy, or tend to leak, which limits their reusability. I wanted to create something which worked from a practical point of view, but that would also be sustainable to manufacture.”
Omega
Andrew Brook (left) with his Pokito travel cup
Made from food-safety approved and eco-friendly thermoplastic elastomer and polypropylene, the Pokito has been designed with the planet and the consumer in mind. With built-in insulation to help keep the contents hot whilst protecting the user’s fingers from burning and a unique raised lip to stops spills while drinking on-the-go, the Pokito is marketing itself as the busy commuter’s new best friend.
Brook has already sold 20,000 units worldwide and is now on a mission to sell the Pokito into as many coffee shop franchises and independent retailers as possible. He came up with the idea for the Pokito back in 2006 while on a fishing trip in Canada. Witnessing the effects of the logging industry first-hand, Brook felt inspired to take action: “The loggers had clear-cut a whole mountain of its pine trees, all of which were destined for the local paper mills.
“Seeing this just made me aware of the environmental impact of something as simple as using a paper cup for my morning coffee. Even a small change like refilling a travel mug can make a huge difference to the well-being of the planet.”
Although the initial design and product development stages for the Pokito were carried out in the south of England, Andrew looked further afield for manufacturers, liaising with a number of firms in Taiwan, Korea and China before calling upon the expertise of North East-based tooling and plastic injection moulding manufacturer, Omega Plastics.
“After many conversations with some overseas firms, it was apparent that the language barrier along with the time difference was going to cause major issues as the project progressed, so ideally, I needed to find a manufacturer in the UK.
“I have always had connections with the North East. My daughter is at university in Durham, I have family living in Yarm in North Yorkshire and our website developer is based in Whitley Bay in North Tyneside.
“I approached Omega Plastics with the concept for my design and they came back to me with a very competitive price. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
The Omega Plastics Group provides specialist plastic injection moulding services to a wide range of industrial sectors including medical, automotive and defence.
With facilities in Washington, Hartlepool and Blyth, Omega Plastics provides support to clients throughout the manufacturing process, from initial designs to finished products.
Gary Powner, Managing Director at Omega Plastics, said: “We were absolutely delighted when Andrew approached us with the concept designs for the Pokito collapsible cup.
“Working together with Andrew, we were able to provide a full turn-key solution for the Pokito, successfully creating the tools needed to produce and mould all five of the components for the Pokito, then supporting the project through the manufacturing process.”
Currently available to pre-order online and purchase from a limited number of stockists in the south of England, mass-production of the Pokito cup has now started.