We met with Rick Dias, Chief Operating Officer at Thermos, who walked us through new changes to the Foogo and Funtainer line. The focus of our conversation was on the changes they have made to the composition of the plastic base and lid in response to reporting by bloggers and feedback from consumers that some Foogo and Funtainer lids were cracking and bases were splitting or detaching from the bottom of the cup.

Thermos launched the Foogo line with one type of plastic, and later changed it to a plastic that had a higher heat tolerance but proved more brittle and prone to breakage when dropped. This meant broken lids for some users and bases that came detached from the stainless steel body for others, which posed an additional laceration hazard with sharp metal welds were exposed.

Adrienne Jones of Baby Toolkit did excellent reporting on this issue, and we picked up the story in February 2008.

Dias cited blogger commentary as the leading cause of their decision to change the plastic again, to a mixture that is a bit more pliable but is not quite as heat tolerant. Here's an interview we did with him yesterday at the ABC Kids' Expo, where he walked us through the changes as well as showing off Thermos' new Phases line of Tritan plastic sippy and straw cups.

Here's our discussion of the changes to the line, and the engineering decisions behind it:



Thermos' Funtainer was denied a ZRecs Top Pick rating in our 2009 BPA-Free Sippy and Straw Cup Showdown, largely based on this outstanding issue and the company's insistence that there was nothing wrong with the product line. Readers, however, awarded it Top Pick Status in our Reader Rescue Poll. The fact that many voters may have been evaluating different versions of the product - either the first version or the second one, and thus making their recommendation on products with a significant variation in long-term performance, makes the often unannounced product tweaking companies do a bit of a challenge for the reviewing process.

We're looking forward to reviewing the entire new product line, and have some features we're particularly optimistic about. More on that - and on how to make sure you get the new version when you purchase a Foogo or Funtainer - when we get the products shipped from Thermos after the show.