We created a collapsible pre-dosed cup of powdered baby formula captured in iconic design. Integrated design ensures our client’s unique position in the competitive, overcrowded baby formula market. Bringing our idea to life was easier said than done. It needs a perfect interaction of cup and bottle, depending on multiple parameters. Together we made it work!
Start-up Mimic aims to bring a unique proposition to the baby formula market: a pre-dosed cup powdered baby formula, offering babies the best possible natural drinking experience. The cup system unburdens parents by providing them just the right amount of balanced nutrients in each single served cup. It should be a user-friendly (a quick and easy prep) and environmentally friendly solution.
We teamed up with the Mimic team. The idea of an integrated functionality was born; develop a collapsible cup. Already for years, baby bottle brands have struggled to solve the cramps and reflux issues with bottles for our newborns. Our joined mission was to re-think and solve this.
The idea of our super-smart cup: Baby’s suction will make this cup flip gently towards the drinking opening, creating a neutral inner air pressure during the whole drinking sequence.
To make this idea come to life is easier said than done. Many parameters must have the right interaction: The choice of materials, wall thickness, geometry of the cup, and the design of the bottle. Together it should lead to precisely the right, gradual flipping behavior.
Our bottle design ‘mimics’ the organic interaction between a newborn and a mom’s breast. We created a sympathetic, round, tactile, and cuddly design that helps the baby feel calm and at peace. Iconic design that stands out.
At the same time, the bottle’s shape is pivotal for the cup to flip in a controlled and uniform way. A balance guarded throughout the process.
On our search for materials with the right properties, we challenged suppliers for innovative mono-layered Polypropylene and an innovative vacuum form process to get wafer-thin cups. We pushed ourselves, creating the right geometry for cup and bottle. The team made numerous fast prototypes, made quick tests and iterations to get there.
Creativity, technical expertise, material knowledge, unbridled enthusiasm, and persistence led to a unique and patented collapsible cup, forming this unique system’s heart.
The choice for the cup-based system implied to choose a 100% recyclable material. A quest for material with all the right properties followed. Specialists at Bachmann helped us develop a wafer-thin, single-layer polypropylene film with exactly the right ‘flipping properties’ that is fully recyclable.
Online sales of this revolutionary system shorten the logistical footprint.
Mimic’s design has been awarded with a red dot product design award and a GIO award for Excellence in Ergonomics. Consumers praise the product with a Baby Innovation Award 2021!
Elektronicaweg 22
2628 XG, Delft
The Netherlands
