Great ideas often arise from frustration. Maybe a product or a function you use, does not work well enough. Or it could be something you are missing in your everyday life.
The inspiration for OxiPour™, however, started very differently. In 2008 I brought a gift to a business partner in Hong Kong, a wine aerator from the Danish company Menu. He took this product in his hand and said to me “We can make such a product”. A couple of weeks later I received a sketch on his idea for a wine aerator. The concept was very complex with sliding stopper, ceramic water wheel, hydrophobic air, membran, liquid flow seperator in ceramic etc. But this was the kick-start of the OxiPour™ innovation, as Henrik Casper (head of innovation at IDEAS 2005-2010) and I decided to make our own simple aerating solution.
The development of OxiPour™ started with very specific objectives:
- to make an aerating function, that can be incorporated with all kind of designs and with different materials
- to make a function that does not aerate too much – but secures a correct aeration of the wine in order to keep the fine nuances of aroma and flavour
- to invent something innovative enough to apply for patent
We tested ALL products in the market – and we made numerous prototypes.
At last we ended up with something quite simple – a gasket with a hollow pipe and 6 elongated slots.
We took our prototypes to the Danish sommelier, Christian Aarø, and asked him to test our OxiPour™ invention. After few modifications he made a blind test with various famous market products, and OxiPour™ came out as “Best in test”.
OxiPour™ is a patented innovation by IDEAS Denmark A/S.
Lone Ogaard Rasmussen
Managing Director