"box" news and stories

A Belgian man, Philippe Meert , used to have difficulty getting all his cereal in the bowl in the mornings. Like many people, he would simply open the box and rip open a portion of the cereal bag within, causing it to spill out the sides of the box and onto the table as he poured. It's hard to say whether residual sleepiness or sloppy box-opening was the main problem, but Meert wanted something that would make pouring easy (and accurate) for even the laziest breakfaster.

In 2004, Meert came out with a product called the Cerealtop, a plastic pouring spout that is designed to clamp onto a cereal box top and make pours easy-to-control. It adjusts to fit any box size and simply snaps onto the open box. Cerealtop is available online from Europe for about $6, but will be hitting the US market this fall for $3.95. 

Source

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I didn't much like to drink plain old water. I salute the ingenuity of the folks that came up with Wateroos, juice boxes of water, but I just don't know if kids are gonna go for it, cute little penguin or not. I will give them props for calling the penguin and his turtle companion "wateroo-ligans," however. Aside from purified water, there's also a sugar-free, no-juice, apple-flavored version. According to their press release, Wateroos are the first and only boxed water beverage on the market.

[Via BevNET]

I recently came across the Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar by Zojirushi. Some of you may be familiar with the company as the maker of other appliances like breadmakers and rice machines. Their rice machines look like they could put a man on the moon and they even play cute little songs. That said, it's no surprise that Zojirushi makes a bento like this. The casing is stainless steel and holds four microwaveable bowls, as well as chopsticks and a chopstick holder. All of it stays in a zippered carrying bag. It looks like they generally sell for about $50. The "Fun!Fun!Fun!" section of the site is also worth checking out.