In this interview, Stuff meets James Vyse, the Welsh man who has managed to beat the world’s biggest drink brands to the seemingly impossible: a self-cooling can and he did so from his bedroom, not a high-tech lab… Cool Can is the world’s first true self-chilling beverage can and now James says he has all the corporate giants are knocking on his door, with interest from Coca-Cola, Suntory America, Carlsberg and M&S – not bad for someone who didn’t finish school!
Cool Can came from my frustration with drinks going warm.
My background is in drinks, and one of the issues I had was that I didn’t like the way canned drinks go warm when you’re on the go. I thought, surely someone’s addressed this, but I found nothing. There were some attempts at self-cooling cans by the big boys – Coca-Cola, Carlsberg and Heineken – but they never cracked it… Naively, I thought I could do this easily, so I looked into the science of it – and over time I got to a position where the Cool Can was starting to work.
Perseverance has been key for me.
Like James Dyson with how many vacs he tried, I made thousands of variations of self-cooling cans, and there were 50 that were feasible. I cut these down and ended up with the core technology, which can be transferred into other forms of packaging. My can cools a beverage down by about 10°C in 60 seconds, uses a safe, natural reactant and is recyclable.
I’m just back from Denver.
I went to visit the biggest can manufacturer in the world out there and they loved Cool Can! I’m interested to see how this will develop as it could be our first big move. I was there for a week and also met up with a Japanese brand that wants to launch it too. So the race is on!
As a kid I played football for Cardiff City.
I was going to be a pro – I played for Cardiff City at school age. I had a contract with Cardiff at 17 and then I left at 19 to go and play in America. I was very competitive and wanted to be the best but I wasn’t good at school – I have no GCSEs and I didn’t go to college. I found school very difficult because of the way my brain needs stimulating. When I left football, I didn’t know what my purpose was, but I fell into bar work.
I was the OG Cocktail Man.
I realised making cocktails was something I got excited about, and that led me to form my first company: The Cocktail Man, a direct cocktail delivery service. I wanted consumers to be able to enjoy cocktails at home, just like we made them at the bar. Then Covid hit and it all went a bit crazy as no one could drink in bars and we were doing deliveries through the post. I decided I wanted to pivot and do something else, and the confidence for this came from knowing how I work, how quickly I absorb information and how well I know the drinks market. If Cool Can had been my first business, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I’ve done now.
I’m going for a full ecosystem of products.
I’m currently working on an interchangeable mechanism that can attach to any can: you push a button and that makes it cold. We’re also developing one where the consumer just buys the base, which you fill with tap water. If people are willing to walk around with those big Stanley cups, then a little base shouldn’t be an issue! I’ve also been working on secret products, but I can talk about them now they’re patented: a self-cooling wine bottle, beer bottle and cup, all in aluminium.
I’ve lived away from Wales for a decade.
I’m from Swansea but I left 10 years ago. I met my partner abroad – it was love at first sight and I couldn’t handle a long-distance relationship so I said “Sorry Mum, I’m leaving” and never moved back. I went to London for a few years, where I learnt how to make a very good cocktail and became an established bartender. We set up home in Nottinghamshire, which is where I am today. I’ve got a base in London as well – I live there a few days a week. It seems like everyone I need to speak to is in London, so I got a little pad there.
I imagine my future home being very hi-tech.
Amazon Home works well for us and the reason is quite strategic. Late at night, if I’m doing drawings, I might need O-rings or something for a new valve so I just speak to Alexa in the night and the next day I’ll have them all delivered. My future home, when I sell this business for a billion pounds, will be one where you walk in and a red carpet automatically rolls down for you and you’re greeted by a robot serving you a Martini!
Tesla’s fart function is where it’s at.
I love my Tesla Model 3. I can’t be creating a sustainable product without a sustainable car, plus I love the fart function and the fact that the kids can play racing games with their steering wheels.
My family grounds me.
We have a mentality of ‘family is everything’. So if someone needs their hall decorating, we will all go over and get it done. This has stuck with me – I’ve not got a big head and I’ll always be humble. If I ever got into the Sunday Times Rich List, I’d probably still be eating beans on toast.
I’m passionate about football and boxing.
Football has always been my No1 sport and I’ve always been decent at it. I played a charity match about a month ago. But I do some boxing as well. I think that’s just being Welsh – we had to look after ourselves or we would have a bloody nose.
