Case Study

Cold Brew Coffee Equipment OEM

Filter Products Company had been supplying a leading commercial cold brew coffee equipment manufacturer with custom coffee strainer bags for many years.  Filter Products engineering team worked collaboratively with the customer’s engineering team to redesign the strainer bag so that they could offer an upgraded cold brew coffee equipment design to their customers.

Customer Issue

The customer needed to ensure that all components included with their equipment were California Proposition 65 compliant. The custom filter design that they had used for years met FDA guidelines, but they wanted their filters to be compliant with CA Prop 65 requirements.

Here is a link that explains this California law Proposition 65 in Plain Language – OEHHA (ca.gov).

Filter Products Company Solution

This new product requirement kicked off an engineering review of the materials used in the manufacture of their strainer bag.  Working collaboratively with the customer, all the materials were tested.  It was determined that some materials were not compliant with Prop 65.  So, new suppliers had to be found, qualified, the strainer bag redesigned, and the manufacturing process changed as needed.

Testing identified several design changes that needed to be made to the custom strainer bag to produce a CA Prop 65 compliant design.  One example was the need to include a new elastic-like material for holding the bag in place.  The team reviewed and tested many different material options from many different suppliers.  In the end, a new material (platinum cored silicon band) and a new supplier were chosen that met the product specification, quality, cost, and delivery targets.  Additionally, the Filter Products team had to redesign the manufacturing process to incorporate this and other CA Prop 65 driven design changes.

Customer Result

The customer was very happy to have partnered with Filter Products Company to improve their product.  They were pleased to relaunch it to the market highlighting the fact that it was both CA Prop 65 compliant and met FDA guidelines.

Services Used

Filter Products provided custom design, product testing, and material sourcing services. We also developed a new manufacturing process to meet this customer’s needs.