Plastic water bottles might soon be a thing of the past thanks to these incredible edible water bubbles created by an innovative sustainable packaging start-up based in London, UK. The London-based company could be changing the whole game with the idea for a water bottle made out of edible materials that delivers hydration in the form of a blob.
Skipping Rocks Lab, a sustainable packaging start-up, introduced Ooho in 2014, but now it’s catching on around the world in a big way. Made of calcium chloride and brown algae extract (both 100 per cent plant-based and biodegradable materials), Ooho is an edible membrane that keeps water packaged in a neat little bubble. Ooho is a shape of a pliant, transparent globe of fluid. It consists of two membrane layers made of sodium alginate, a substance obtained from brown algae and calcium chloride. The jelly-like consistency of the water bubble is accomplished through the process of gelification, which comprises of adding an edible gelling agent to liquids. What is achieved through all that is, to put it simply, a squishy blob of water that can be consumed whole!
Using a process called spherification, which was popularized by molecular gastronomy chef Ferran Adrià, the membrane keeps water inside. People can either eat the whole thing, or take a bite and suck down the water, and then dispose of the casing.
Every water globule contains 250 milliliters of water and costs only around two cents to produce. The retail price is not yet determined and the inventors of the product are currently in the middle of raising funds so that they can bring Ooho! to consumers. They are aiming to get the product to the market within a year.