Nearly three years ago, the company said the lid was “the first significant innovation in the metal jar lid industry in 75 years.”
Guglielmo’s Sauce is the first pasta sauce brand and manufacturer to adopt the lid. Guglielmo’s Sauce with the Dayton-designed top is available in more than 250 Wegman’s, Price Chopper, Tops and Stop & Shop stores across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The inspiration behind the product is simple: Allow more people to open jar lids with their own hands, without a tool or product to assist.
“The packaging that is made and sold today, it’s made for able-bodied consumers,” CCT President Brandon Bach said in an interview Friday.
Some eight years in the making, the lid uses a push button mechanism to facilitate opening, doing away with the friction sometimes associated with twisting a vacuum-sealed jar open.
CCT also is in talks with additional national and international manufacturers/grocers.
The aluminum lid has been in some stores for a while. In October, Boyer’s Food Markets became the first supermarket chain to offer the EEASY Lid on its new Boyer’s brand pasta sauce line. Boyer’s sauce is sold in 19 Pennsylvania stores.
Bach is based in Dayton. The company has a “technology center” at 5730 Webster St., where the “lug” version of the EEASY lid is produced. Such lids are used in more grocery store products, he said.
Today, the company has about 11 production employees. Most of the research and sweat equity that went into the innovation happened in Dayton, according to Bach.
“We see the benefits. We see the possibility of the EEASY lid. It’s making life easier for consumers,” he said.
A “lug” lid can be found on pickle jars, for example. They take a quarter- to a half-inch turn to open, as opposed to lids that require continuous or complete turns to open or close.
Bach said the company is working to put the lid on jars in Ohio grocery stores — indeed, all over the nation and the world. “We are seeing a lot of interest in Europe, as well. We are going to be attending some trade shows.”
The price may be a bit higher than a standard, commodity tin-plate lid, he acknowledged. But he believes consumers will see the benefits immediately.
“No one should have to struggle to open a jar lid,” Bach said in a release. “While the EEASY Lid brings customers ease of use in the kitchen, it also gives independence back to those who struggle to prepare a meal due to physical limitations.”
“The EEasy Lid’s primary objective would make any occupational therapist swoon: it’s designed to assist people with limited fine-motor abilities — muscle tone and the like — open jars containing foods like pasta sauce, mayonnaise, and more,” Forbes magazine said in a January article.
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