Open Funk in Wired & WEF, running production and the last certification challenge
💥Wired UK & World Economic Forum cover Open Funk & e-waste
We’re proud to see interest picking up in what we’re doing - from grassroots organisations all the way up to some of the most respected news outlets. Jack McGovan covers our story in this summer's Wired UK print edition. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum showcases how circular electronics such as re:Mix can solve the growing e-waste problem.
🥑 A place for all recipes made with re:Mix
Many of you have asked us to build a collection of the recipes we’re doing with re:Mix, to serve as inspiration. We’ve listened and just launched openfunk.co/food: iced coffee, peanut butter, pesto, green smoothies, chocolate spread and more - it’s all in there, with high-quality videos, imagery and instructions. We’ll add to this space as we go along, and will soon invite you guys to contribute!
❓Got questions? We have answers
Our new support centre gathers frequently asked questions, a library of compatible jars sorted by country, and more. Curious about the most read articles? 1: “If I order now, when will I get my order?” 2: “Which jars work with re:Mix?” 3: “What is a pre-order?”. Drop us a line if there’s anything you’d like to see covered here.
🥦 👅 The Food Contact challenge
All certification tests are passed - electric safety, electromagnetic compatibility, restriction of hazardous substances, chemical testing - except one. We’ve talked about our jar seal before - the part that keeps water from coming out when you’re mixing, and that adapts to all glass jars. We were advised to use a 100% recyclable food grade TPE material (thermoplastic elastomer) to make it. But when one of the food contact test results was failing (called “total migration with isooctane”), the material seemed not so suitable to be in contact with fatty food at the end (damn!) and we realised we’ve been caught up in a triangle ping pong between the material provider, the distributor and our injection moulding partner.
All of a sudden, there was a second datasheet popping up (so called “Food contact statement”), which states that “The product should not come into contact with foodstuffs in which fat forms the external phase”, (i.e. it shouldn’t get in touch with fatty foods - really??).
Long story short, we decided to go for the most food-contact friendly seal material we could find out there - Silicone! For that, we will need to make a new mould in the coming weeks and make a new food contact test to validate the new material. This causes unfortunate delays for you and extra costs for us - but when it comes to health, we can’t afford any cheap shortcuts!
🏡💜 We have a new home!
The old 20 m2 shoebox-office wouldn’t do for storage, running 12 3D printers, assembly line, and co-working .. So we moved into a new space with plenty of room (45 m2) to run our production activities properly - and will throw a big party once we start shipping. If you’re in Berlin - you’ll be invited :) Thanks to Motion Lab for making urban manufacturing such a joy and Chris for the awesome couch!
🪛 We’re making 150 re:Mix a month in our workshop
Meanwhile, production continues. The above-mentioned issue with the seal is in a way lucky: we can simply add this part at a later stage, allowing us to produce and prepare the entire device in the meantime. We’re running at the planned rate of 150 mixers a month, so that we can start shipping most pre-orders as soon as we get the new seal.
🐇🐇🐇 Our accelerator program came to an end
Thanks to the Amazon Launch Pad and Climate KIC teams for all the help and support during the Sustainability Accelerator. What did we get out of it? Hands-on advice, methods and tools to make Open Funk financially sustainable and scale it, learnings from other 15 teams in the circular economy space, a top-notch photo shooting and a first sustainability impact assessment of re:Mix approved by experts in the field (stay tuned!).
🚚 When can you expect your re:Mix?
We expect to solve the above-mentioned issue by end of August or first half of September.
At that point, we’ll have a few hundred devices to ship all together. If you order now, it will take us about 3 months to ship to you, from when you place your order. We can’t wait to (finally) be allowed to start sending you over this funky blender!
With funk,
Paul & Ken