DEEP BIGHT — It won’t be long before people start lining up on the highway outside of Butter Pot Park to try and get a campsite for Victoria Day weekend.
It was around this time last year that avid camper and coffee enthusiast Bernard Cook decided it was time to take the leap and become something he was destined to be — an inventor.
“My biggest cringe of camping has always been in the morning facing that stove-top coffee perk and having to wait the 15 minutes to get a coffee and ending up with ... not a very good cup of coffee,” says Cook from his home in Deep Bight, Trinity Bay. “You’re spitting out coffee grounds all the time.”
So, Cook started a company called Demand Innovation to design, develop and manufacture a backwoods coffee perk.
By July of last year, he had a prototype of what is now the Survival Perk.
Cook spent six months doing market research, getting a patent and testing the product on friends and family.
“One Sunday after church services here in Deep Bight, I had people come up to the house afterwards and try the coffee and watch how the Survival Perk worked,” he says.
Afterward he asked his guests to fill out anonymous questionnaires.
“The results were fantastic,” says Cook. “(I) had 100 per cent of them (tell me they) were totally in awe over the quality of the coffee and how quickly I was able to make the coffee.”
The Survival Perk was officially launched the first week in December and sells for less than $20.
How it works
The thing that makes the Survival Perk unique — and the part Cook has a patent pending on — is called pressure infusion, which extracts higher levels of coffee sap and coffee oil from the grounds.
The invention looks like a large water bottle than you might take to the gym, or see hockey players squirt in their faces during games.
Once you add boiling water to the grounds and replace the filter and cap, you turn the Survival Perk upside down and squeeze the coffee out into a cup. The length of the squeeze determines the strength of the coffee.
The four components of the gadget are assembled in Deep Bight and the packaging was designed and made in Mount Pearl.
Cook hired a handful of part-time workers to assemble the first batch of 1,500, which have all gone to market.
“We had one store that sold out 17 of them in their first month having them,” says Cook.
“The rate at which it took off sort of took me by surprise.”
According to Cook’s research, if he could capture five per cent of the North American market for portable coffee perks he would need to hire 100 people full-time to assemble the perks.
More than 120 stores on the island are selling the perk, Cook says.
Outside the province, it’s only available online, but Cook says several chain stores across Canada and in the United States are interested in carrying the perk.
An idea is born
One of Cook’s inspirations for the Survival Perk came from watching “Newfoundland Sportsman” on TV.
“I watch that program and certainly if not every show, every other show Dwight (Blackwood) and Gord (Follett) are always there, and when they’re doing their boil-up, they’re saying, ‘I wish someone would invent a coffee maker for in the woods.’”
Cook approached Blackwood and Follett with his invention and showed them how it worked.
“Looking at the product, you wouldn’t think it could work but he gave us a demonstration,” says Blackwood, the president and publisher of the Sportsman magazine.
“He gave us a taste test and it was amazing. It was just as good or better than what you buy at Tim Hortons or other coffee shops.”
The Sportsman staff liked the perk so much, they started selling it on their website.
“We’re big coffee drinkers,” says Blackwood. “When you get in the woods, there’s nothing better than putting up a fire and boiling the kettle and when you can get perked coffee like you can get out of the Survival Perk, it makes it a whole lot easier for fellas that have a craving for coffee in the mornings.”
“It’s dynamite,” adds Follett,
Source : http://www.thewesternstar.com
It was around this time last year that avid camper and coffee enthusiast Bernard Cook decided it was time to take the leap and become something he was destined to be — an inventor.
“My biggest cringe of camping has always been in the morning facing that stove-top coffee perk and having to wait the 15 minutes to get a coffee and ending up with ... not a very good cup of coffee,” says Cook from his home in Deep Bight, Trinity Bay. “You’re spitting out coffee grounds all the time.”
So, Cook started a company called Demand Innovation to design, develop and manufacture a backwoods coffee perk.
By July of last year, he had a prototype of what is now the Survival Perk.
Cook spent six months doing market research, getting a patent and testing the product on friends and family.
“One Sunday after church services here in Deep Bight, I had people come up to the house afterwards and try the coffee and watch how the Survival Perk worked,” he says.
Afterward he asked his guests to fill out anonymous questionnaires.
“The results were fantastic,” says Cook. “(I) had 100 per cent of them (tell me they) were totally in awe over the quality of the coffee and how quickly I was able to make the coffee.”
The Survival Perk was officially launched the first week in December and sells for less than $20.
How it works
The thing that makes the Survival Perk unique — and the part Cook has a patent pending on — is called pressure infusion, which extracts higher levels of coffee sap and coffee oil from the grounds.
The invention looks like a large water bottle than you might take to the gym, or see hockey players squirt in their faces during games.
Once you add boiling water to the grounds and replace the filter and cap, you turn the Survival Perk upside down and squeeze the coffee out into a cup. The length of the squeeze determines the strength of the coffee.
The four components of the gadget are assembled in Deep Bight and the packaging was designed and made in Mount Pearl.
Cook hired a handful of part-time workers to assemble the first batch of 1,500, which have all gone to market.
“We had one store that sold out 17 of them in their first month having them,” says Cook.
“The rate at which it took off sort of took me by surprise.”
According to Cook’s research, if he could capture five per cent of the North American market for portable coffee perks he would need to hire 100 people full-time to assemble the perks.
More than 120 stores on the island are selling the perk, Cook says.
Outside the province, it’s only available online, but Cook says several chain stores across Canada and in the United States are interested in carrying the perk.
An idea is born
One of Cook’s inspirations for the Survival Perk came from watching “Newfoundland Sportsman” on TV.
“I watch that program and certainly if not every show, every other show Dwight (Blackwood) and Gord (Follett) are always there, and when they’re doing their boil-up, they’re saying, ‘I wish someone would invent a coffee maker for in the woods.’”
Cook approached Blackwood and Follett with his invention and showed them how it worked.
“Looking at the product, you wouldn’t think it could work but he gave us a demonstration,” says Blackwood, the president and publisher of the Sportsman magazine.
“He gave us a taste test and it was amazing. It was just as good or better than what you buy at Tim Hortons or other coffee shops.”
The Sportsman staff liked the perk so much, they started selling it on their website.
“We’re big coffee drinkers,” says Blackwood. “When you get in the woods, there’s nothing better than putting up a fire and boiling the kettle and when you can get perked coffee like you can get out of the Survival Perk, it makes it a whole lot easier for fellas that have a craving for coffee in the mornings.”
“It’s dynamite,” adds Follett,
Source : http://www.thewesternstar.com
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