Hexus lifestyle:
The idea arose, according to its London-based inventor Hugo Frazer, for the very reason you'd imagine - because of his frustration at being unable to open eggs without spilling their contents everywhere or breaking the yolk. Or both.
And, rather modestly, Frazer reckons that an idea that at first might seem like an impossibility actually turned out to be relatively straightforward to achieve using a combination of nanotechnology and lateral thinking.
Frazer, who is best know for his development work on something rather bigger - those giant wind-turbines you see on hilltops and seashores - says that nanotechnology lets the company seamlessly lay down a small area of artificial shell ON TOP of the original - and one that is sufficiently deep to accommodate the ring-pull mechanism.
Doing things that way makes the ring-pull addition non-invasive and thus doesn't add any health risks or in any way lessen the egg's shelf-life.
With the technology worked out, the problem that remained was of cost - an egg is relatively cheap to buy and thus not something where it's possible to add much cost to the production without making it totally unaffordable.
Fortunately, though, according to Frazer, the very fact that ring-pulls have been in mass production for so long has worked in his company's favour - costs are already very low. Even so Egcellent Ideas has concentrated its first efforts on premium-priced egg products where a little additional on-cost (about 3p for 10 eggs) won't, proportionately, have a big effect on the retail bottom line.
No, we didn't know there were such things as "premium-priced" egg products either but seemingly there are, and plenty of them, including duck eggs, goose eggs, swan eggs and salted eggs - as favoured in Chinese and Thai cooking - with prices that are higher still if the eggs are produced organically.
More info, including ring-pull-egg stockists, from Egcellent Ideas's web site. Oh and don't forget to let us hear your thoughts over in the excellent HEXUS.community.
The idea arose, according to its London-based inventor Hugo Frazer, for the very reason you'd imagine - because of his frustration at being unable to open eggs without spilling their contents everywhere or breaking the yolk. Or both.
And, rather modestly, Frazer reckons that an idea that at first might seem like an impossibility actually turned out to be relatively straightforward to achieve using a combination of nanotechnology and lateral thinking.
Frazer, who is best know for his development work on something rather bigger - those giant wind-turbines you see on hilltops and seashores - says that nanotechnology lets the company seamlessly lay down a small area of artificial shell ON TOP of the original - and one that is sufficiently deep to accommodate the ring-pull mechanism.
Doing things that way makes the ring-pull addition non-invasive and thus doesn't add any health risks or in any way lessen the egg's shelf-life.
With the technology worked out, the problem that remained was of cost - an egg is relatively cheap to buy and thus not something where it's possible to add much cost to the production without making it totally unaffordable.
Fortunately, though, according to Frazer, the very fact that ring-pulls have been in mass production for so long has worked in his company's favour - costs are already very low. Even so Egcellent Ideas has concentrated its first efforts on premium-priced egg products where a little additional on-cost (about 3p for 10 eggs) won't, proportionately, have a big effect on the retail bottom line.
No, we didn't know there were such things as "premium-priced" egg products either but seemingly there are, and plenty of them, including duck eggs, goose eggs, swan eggs and salted eggs - as favoured in Chinese and Thai cooking - with prices that are higher still if the eggs are produced organically.
More info, including ring-pull-egg stockists, from Egcellent Ideas's web site. Oh and don't forget to let us hear your thoughts over in the excellent HEXUS.community.
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