WIRRAL INVENTOR LAUNCHES THE INTERNATIONAL‘ PUCMUG’
W L
BUSINESS
JONATHAN QUINN
WIRRAL INVENTOR LAUNCHES THE INTERNATIONAL‘ PUCMUG’
Wirral businessman Jonathan Quinn and his team have developed and launched The PucMug- the World’ s first portable ultrasonic cleaner.
Jonathan noticed the coffee world blind spot in November 2016 and came up with the idea after his wife, Linzie, asked him to buy a latte in a well-known chain. He noticed that the server wiped the milk steam wand with a very dirty cloth after frothing. Within weeks, he had set up a company‘ Hygienic Innovations’ based in Bromborough, with a separate office and lab at University of Chester Thornton science park.
The PucMug rocketed to life through a swift six months of development from concept to prototype. Jonathan’ s father built the first four prototype units in his workshop. Then the product was protected by patent, copyright and design rights for the World’ s first portable ultrasonic cleaner.
The PucMug works using ultrasonic waves that vibrate at 30,000 times per second. This travels through the cold or warm water in the PucMug, maintaining cleanliness of the wand inside and out. This is intended to replace and improve upon the practice of using towels, cloths and sponges, that only clean the outsides of equipment and potentially become hotbeds for bacteria! The cleaner is lightweight and zaps a steam wand free of milk froth in about 3-5 seconds. The PucMug also has many other uses such as cleaning of watches, jewellery, cosmetic brushes, cleaning boiler and water dispenser nozzles, beer taps, toys and much more.
When asked about the product, Jonathan said " We have been refining the design and we now have a market-ready product. It takes exactly the same time as wiping the nozzle, a couple of seconds, but crucially it cleans inside and outside, removing all milk residue and other bacteria, scale and dirt."
The company recently won an Merseyside Innovation Award( MIA) in January 2017. MIA founder Brian McCann said: " The coffee shop market in the UK is massive and continues to grow at an astonishing rate. What makes this so ingenious is its simplicity and ease of use. As soon as this came before the MIA panel we all had the same reaction – brilliant idea. Jonathan has come up with a great product in a short space of time. There are many excellent coffee shops around Liverpool who take hygiene very seriously and it will be interesting to see the market reaction to the product.”
Hygienic Innovations are developing two versions of the product- a standard and premium- which differ in appearance, and in speed ultrasonic output power.
The first 25 units were picked up in late May and sent out to testers and early adopters on the English café scene. The units will be available from September for purchase and Hygienic Innovations will also be offering a rental contract.
More details can be found at www. hygienicinnovations. com.
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