Inventor says he has a batter idea

Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Getting the pancake batter into the whipped cream canister actually was the easy part. Batter Blaster creator Sean O'Connor says he managed to come up with something edible on the first try.

The real challenge was when the longtime San Francisco resident started telling other people about his plan to revolutionize breakfast, one aerosol can at a time. Even the companies that let O'Connor and his spray-can pancake batter in the door sent him away almost as quickly.

"The biggest challenge of the whole thing was going to raise money," O'Connor says, splurting out a Mickey Mouse-shaped flapjack during a pancake-making demonstration in his office near Potrero Hill. "Try telling someone, 'I have this idea. We're going to put pancakes in a can,' and not have them laugh you out of the room."

If you shop at one of the higher-end Bay Area grocery stores, the chances are good you've seen O'Connor's pancakes in a can. And beginning this week, it's being carried by Costco. Backed by "friends and family" financing, O'Connor found a food packer who could mass-produce the batter, bought some equipment and is hoping his stab at making an easy process even easier becomes the next Lunchables.

O'Connor, a jovial man with the build of a Raiders defensive tackle, recognizes the kitschy value of his product. Its closest food industry relative is arguably Easy Cheese, the processed-fromage-in-a-can from Kraft Foods that has sold millions but also has become something of a punch line - for proof, go to YouTube and search that product's name. The Batter Blaster Web site features a campy homemade commercial complete with a jingle that seems written specifically to become embedded in a consumer's skull for the rest of the month. ("Make a bet-ter breakfast faster ... Batter Blaster!")

But O'Connor also is very serious about his pancakes and waffles. Batter Blaster is USDA-certified organic, and he insists the product isn't inferior to the other store-bought options on the shelf. (Amateur drug users might be disappointed to learn that Batter Blaster is powered by the more ozone layer-friendly CO2, not the nitrous oxide propellant that can be found in whipped cream canisters.)

O'Connor, 36, came up with the idea during his years, from 2000 to 2004, as co-owner of Thee Parkside Cafe in San Francisco. After creating flavored cream by mixing Grand Marnier, vanilla and other fluids into whipped-cream chargers, O'Connor wondered if he could do the same thing with funnel cake or waffle batter. But the idea didn't get tested until a few years ago, when he started dating the woman he'd later marry, Mistine.

"She loves waffles," O'Connor said. "And when we started dating, it was like 'Oh yeah, baby, I'll make you waffles.' That's what got me back into mixing the batter."

O'Connor brought the idea to his friend Nate Steck, who had been in the food development and manufacturing business for more than a decade - producing, among other things, the Nate's line of meatless meatballs, chicken-style nuggets and rolled tacos. Steck said he would hear from people pitching food ideas three or four times per month, but O'Connor's idea was different.

"He told me, 'I have an idea. Don't steal it,' " Steck remembers. "I thought it was genius. I was wondering why no one had done it already."

Steck and O'Connor co-founded the company and looked for a food processing facility - but were turned down by everyone in the whipped cream sector. In the end, they built their own plant in Southern California.

The product launched in October, and Steck says Batter Blaster has already moved 400,000 units - well above expectations. Batter Blaster is distributed mostly in high-end grocery stores throughout California (including Whole Foods and Andronico's in the Bay Area) and a few markets in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest.

Batter Blaster is one of those products, like pre-shredded cheese, that invites ridicule for its contribution to laziness in American kitchens. But the biggest obstacle for worldwide success is probably the price. An 18-ounce can of the product, good for about 28 four-inch pancakes, retails for $4.99 to $5.99. (Costco will price packs of three for $10.) Thirty-two ounces of powdered pancake batter can be found for less than half that cost.

O'Connor has already thought this one out.

"Imagine if this was 15 years ago, and I said, 'I have a great idea. Give me 20 million bucks and I'm going to take heads of lettuce, wash them and put it in a bag and charge twice as much for them,' " O'Connor said. "Most investors would say, 'What -hole will buy heads of lettuce in a bag?' "

Whatever the cost of Batter Blaster, the product has already become a darling in the blogosphere. And O'Connor says the feedback has been fascinating.

Some of the e-mailers couldn't figure out why their pancakes were burning (Batter Blaster pancakes require no-stick spray), suggesting that a McDonald's/doughnut shop demographic that knows nothing about cooking is picking up the product. O'Connor said another unexpected market is empty nesters, who like pancakes but no longer need to make an entire batch. If the product continues to sell, O'Connor already has tested other recipes, including strawberry batter, blueberry batter and an aerosol-can brownie mix.

So how long until Wesley Snipes shows up on the hinterland cable channels selling Batter Blaster at 4 a.m.?

"I would love to do an infomercial, but we can't ship this stuff overnight," O'Connor said. "If we could, it would have made this a whole lot easier. We've had Internet requests from all over the world. But I think it costs us $45 to FedEx one can, so the value isn't really there."




-- To view a video of Sean O'Connor demonstrating the Batter Blaster, go to sfgate.com.

Making the easy even easier

Great moments in simple cooking (date product launched is in parentheses):

Easy Cheese (1966): Often mistaken for its processed cheese food cousin Cheese Whiz, the aerosol can cheese spread was invented in 1966 and is distributed by Kraft Foods.

Goober Grape (1968): The J.M. Smucker Co. made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches much easier - swirling peanut butter and grape jelly together in one jar.

Prepackaged bagged salads (1992): Once a novelty product, these bags of cut-up lettuce have become a multibillion-dollar industry.

The George Foreman Grill (1995): Once an infomercial oddity, this product pitched by the former world heavyweight boxing champion has gone mainstream - with more than 100 million grills sold.

Uncrustables (2003): After Lunchables became a huge hit, Smucker's produced its first line of Uncrustables, small peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off, encased in plastic. They were a hit, and a grilled cheese version followed.