Mission Viejo-based Smart Cups LLC has the buzz. Now it’s looking to ramp up sales for its line of “just-add-water” beverages, whose product comes printed dry on the inside of plant-based cups.
Founded in 2013 and opening a nearly 23,000-square-foot facility along Jeronimo Road four years years later, Smart Cups has gained its share of national headlines for what it calls the world’s first printed beverage, one whose packaging means that a truck carrying 96,000 cans of soda could in theory instead carry 1.2 million Smart Cups printed with the same product.
Time Magazine gave the company a nod for its “Best Inventions of 2021,” and a year before that, boxer Mike Tyson inked what was described at the time as “a long-term, multimillion-dollar deal” with Smart Cups to create new lines of products.
Revenue has been slower to come by. The company, which currently sells its product via its online store, reports about $3 million of sales since launching the product in 2017.
Founder and Chief Executive Chris Kanik is betting on a quick ramp-up soon, saying the company’s goal is to boost revenue to $20 million within 18 months.
“There’s going to be a lot of interest in Smart Cups” in the next year or two, Kanik tells the Business Journal. “We’re anticipating going through a period of hyper growth.”
Manufacturing Boost
Part of Kanik’s optimism comes from a new automated manufacturing system at its Mission Viejo base, across the street from the city’s Amazon distribution facility, that will increase production by tenfold.
The company today produces up to 12,000 cups in an eight-hour shift at its manufacturing facility.
It says it is installing a multimillion-dollar automation project—expected to be completed this year—with the aim of producing about 115,000 cups per eight-hour shift, or about four printed cups per second.
Currently, the company counts 11 full-time employees, with 30 to 50 contractors that serve as engineers, scientists and marketers.
Its energy drinks come in packs of 10 9-ounce cups in flavors such as tropical punch and raspberry lemonade, and start at $8.99 a pouch.
IFF Link
A recently struck partnership with a food and beverage industry heavyweight also comes with high hopes.
Smart Cups a few months ago signed a deal with New York’s International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (NYSE: IFF), a $32 billion-valued maker of flavors, fragrances and cosmetic actives.
IFF’s “Nourish” division, which counts a portfolio of ingredients “to enhance nutritional value, texture and functionality in a wide range of beverage, dairy, bakery, confectionery and culinary applications,” brought in about $150 million in revenue last quarter.
Terms of Smart Cups’ deal with IFF were undisclosed.
IFF’s Gregory Yep, EVP, chief global scientific and sustainability officer, said “By gaining exclusive access to Smart Cups’ manufacturing technology and this collaboration, we will focus on the development of new innovative print products that will help lead the future of sustainability, manufacturing, and enable new product formats for consumer-packaged goods companies.”
The company’s partnership with IFF will also support development of products in the health and wellness category, officials said. While Kanik declined to specify what those products will be, he said the company expects to launch them by early 2023.
Business is No Joke
Kanik is a former standup comic whose education was heavy on chemistry. “I picked chemistry because I like ‘MacGyver,’ and I wanted to learn how to blow things up,” he said.
He said the idea for his company came during a Taco Tuesday night out, when a server wasn’t getting his margarita fast enough.
He thought, “What if I can pour some powder and make my own drink?”
The technology behind his company was originally developed to be a drug delivery system, Kanik said.
“We commercialized it in the beverage industry so that we can have a proof of concept … to see what the market demand would be.”
The technology, a “proprietary patented process,” creates a shell around the ingredients, which dissolves in contact with water.
By enabling “waterless transportation,” Smart Cups’ technology, transportation costs can be lowered, as can be carbon emissions, he said.
The ability to transport large amounts of [printed products] to regions of the world that are deficient in not just micronutrients and food, but also refrigeration—because [our] product does not require refrigeration—has the opportunity to really impact the world,” Kanik said. “It’s a real game changer.”
