The Chill Can product (carrying an energy drink) is scheduled to launch onto the US market at the end of March or the beginning of April, and will be available initially in “selected convenience stores” in Southern California and Las Vegas.

Joseph Company International’s energy drink brand West Coast Chill (no sugar, no caffeine) carries the slogan ‘The Ice Age is Over’, and is the first product to be packed in the innovative can.

The firm claims that the technology will allow customers to enjoy its drink ice cold without using ice or refrigeration at a price comparable to other premium energy drinks such as Red Bull.

“You’ll buy it warm, and have a chill on demand product, anytime, anywhere,” CEO Mitchell Joseph told BeverageDaily.com.

No sleep for three days

The beverage features EPA Stratospheric Award-winning ‘Microcool technology’, which has been developed, patented and licensed by Joseph Company itself, and Joseph said his company had finessed the technology over the last 19 years.

He said: “I haven’t slept in three days. There are so many calls coming in, many from friends of hours saying ‘I thought you’d quit on this. But I’ve been very quiet all these years.

“Now we’ve let this thing go, it’s like letting your youngest child go to school. It was tough, but we feel really good about it.”

Joseph added: “The phones are ringing off the hook. It’s not like we’re brand new at this, but a lot the major companies are calling. In fact, two called this morning, two of the biggest retailers in the world.

“Everyone’s excited, because if you can eliminate leaky refrigeration, and vending, and have a cold can without the use of ice, refrigeration and energy, then that’s a big plus.”

The can uses CO2 reclaimed from the environment and “activated carbon ascertained from a renewable vegetable source”, with standard beverage cans bought in from producers then fitted with the Joseph Company’s inner unit.

This is activated via an activation button, which leads the beverage inside the can to drop 30C within minutes, the Joseph Company said.

How it works

Mitchell Joseph himself told this publication how the technology worked: “There’s an inner unit called a heat exchanger, an HEU, and inside is an organic, renewable vegetable source done from activated carbon made from coconut shells.

“The adsorbent that goes on there is the reclaim – which we won the US EPA award for in 1998 – which reclaims CO2 that is already in the atmosphere, bringing it in and clearing the air away from it, and using that as the source of CO2.

“Once you push the button on the bottom of the can, it then releases the CO2 from the activated carbon – it’s not absorbed, it’s adsorbed – then that becomes the last stage of your refrigeration system basically.”

“So without energy its environmentally acceptable and sustainable. Basically that’s how the unit works," Joseph said, adding that the Chill Can would "revolutionise the beverage industry, and the way the consumer perceives a cold drink”.