In this installment of Gear Daddy, Daddy Troy talks with the COO and President of Thermos about their new line of stainless steel bottles. The Foogo Phases system of drinking cups feature interchangeable lids that can be switched out based on various stages of child development. The stainless steel cup is BPA free and a great alternative to traditional sippy cups. The lids also work with the Tritan Thermos bottle. Watch and learn the benefits of stainless steel drinking cups. DadLabs Ep. 571 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Troy: Welcome back to DadLabs. I'm Daddy Troy. We have a big treat for you today. I'm here with Rick, the COO and President of Thermos. Thanks for being with us Rick. Rick's gonna tell us, not only about some new Thermos products, but also the big difference between, you know this is not just metal, this is stainless steel, the big difference between stainless steel and aluminum. So all you parents are going to want to stick around and hear all about it.

Daddy Troy: Hey Rick, thanks so much for being with us today. You're gonna tell us all about the new Thermos Foogo Phases line right?

Rick: Correct.

Daddy Troy: Great, tell us about it.

Rick: Well Foogo Phases is actually a line that's the next generation of Foogo products. And the concept behind Foogo Phases is that it grows with your child. You know, kids develop at different ages and different paces. And we really think that the parents want to be responsible for determining what type of products that they drink from, whether that be a product with handles, whether a product with a soft spout, with a hard spout, with a straw. So we wanted to leave it up to the parents and the best way to do that was to make this line with interchangeable lids.

Daddy Troy: So as I look at all these right here, so you said soft spout versus hard spout. This one's got a soft spout, our users can see that's real bendy right there. This one's got more of a hard spout and is this age appropriate in terms of when you go from soft to hard?

Rick: Instead of saying ages, we have sort of age recommendations. But again, every child's different. Some kids talk earlier or walk earlier than others. So we wanted to make the interchangeable lid system which allows you to interchange the lids. What's also interesting about Phases is that we can change not only among the different skews within the stainless steel vacuum wear line, but also within our new Tritan line. Tritan is a co-polymer. What's great about it is that it's exceptionally clear, very durable, dishwasher safe, high heat tolerance, and totally BPA free.

Daddy Troy: And also it looks like the lids from the stainless steel line also fit on to this as well.

Rick: That's right and that's the beauty of it.

Daddy Troy: What are the advantages of stainless steel versus aluminum?

Rick: Manufacturers need to coat the interior of aluminum products. Aluminum's not food safe, so they coat it, and what they coat it with is sort of the big question these days right? And there's been a lot of controversy with other manufacturers surrounding the linings within their aluminum bottles. Stainless steel products, particularly products from Thermos that are 18 8 grade stainless steel don't require any inner lining.

Daddy Troy: No inner lining in there.

Rick: Because stainless steel was inherently BPA free. It's non-reactive to foods or any sort of acids. Vacuum insulated stainless steel as opposed to single wall stainless steel has an added benefit and that is that it insulates. That's one of the reasons that the Foogo line is really different than other just stainless steel lines. We think stainless steel is a better material. Other people also have stainless steel but only Thermos has stainless steel vacuum products for kids and that's really important.

Daddy Troy: I know that in my family, we recently saw some knock-offs at an inexpensive drug store. They were selling some stainless steel bottles. Also some aluminum bottles as well. And you gotta be careful what you buy and it's worth going with a trusted brand like Thermos. Well Rick, thanks so much for helping us out today.

Rick: Thank you Troy.

Daddy Troy: And we'll see you next time on DadLabs.