‘I’m from a Swansea council estate – now I’ve created something the world’s biggest drinks companies are fighting over’
By Jess Sharp, Money live reporter
Nobody likes taking a sip from a can to discover their drink has gone from refreshingly cold to disappointingly warm.
It’s an issue many businesses have sought to fix, but now a 31-year-old from a council estate in Wales believes he has the answer – and some of the biggest drinks companies in the world are after it.
James Vyse has created a self-cooling can that he says brings the temperature of a drink down to 7C in minutes.
The dad-of-four entered the drinks market with a canned cocktail brand, but quickly saw that they lost their appeal as soon as they got warm. He decided to leave the company to focus on creating a solution.
For almost two years, he has been working on the Delta H Innovations Cool Can, chucking his ideas on a wall in his bedroom covered in blackboard paint.
He started with a crowdfunding campaign to back the idea, raising £150,000 within a few hours. Now the business has an estimated value of around £30m.
And the likes of Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, Red Bull, Monster and other huge brands are all bidding to get a limited exclusivity deal on the product.
“The excitement is there. The hype is real. Cans are actually outdated in terms of modern technology. This is a breakthrough. Some say we could be the next Tetra Pak,” Vyse told Money.
‘I was the underdog – now I want this to be a billion-pound business’
His aim is to sell the can to drinks brands and manufacturers, which would then fill it, seal it and send it out to the public.
But although some of the biggest businesses are knocking on his door, Vyse said he wanted to remain “quite independent” for the time being.
“I want to build this to become a billion-pound business. This is a legacy thing for me. I’ve got kids, I’m from very humble beginnings from a council estate in Swansea. I was the underdog and I’ve worked really hard,” he said.
“We had our first baby living in a bedroom in my partner’s parents’ house because we couldn’t afford rent. This is all about the vision and where we want to be.
“We’re kind of letting the horses race, I suppose, to see who we can kind of leverage potential exclusivity with. We feel like once we have struck that partnership, the business’s curve is going to be quite dramatic. We’re holding out for the highest bidder.”
So how does the can work?
Drinks taken from the fridge can warm up in as little as 10 minutes, reaching room temperature within 15 minutes in moderately warm conditions.
Vyse’s solution claims not only to maintain cold temperatures but also to cool drinks down to 7°C and keep them that cold for up to 45 minutes.
At the base of the can is a mechanism that hosts a salt-based component. You press a button at the bottom of the can, which activates the component, frosting the walls and ultimately cooling the drink inside.
“It’s totally different from any previous attempts that there have been. We took a fresher approach and we’ve done something that these billion-dollar giants couldn’t. This is Welsh engineering at its finest,” Vyse said.
“The can is simple to produce, it’s scalable and it actually works.”
Previous inventions used an aerosol model, which made the cans heavy, costly and not very environmentally friendly, he said.
“So, who wants to make history? Who is going to be the first brand to commercialise the self-cooling can? We are all ears.”
We’ll be speaking to Vyse live in Business Live from 11.30am today
