32oz Culture Cup / Pot – Supply Issues

Many have noticed that the 32oz cup has changed. This was not by choice but by the knock-on issues caused by Covid and the Suez Canal incident. Also, we had previously purchased all the stock of 32oz deli pots in the UK which matched the lids, however we have used all that stock up now and imports of this brand have stopped too.

At the start of 2021 the manufacture of the Poly-fabric lid raised the prices several times in a few months, as much as 20% on two occasions.  A main reason for this was due to a new style lid they had developed, which we had no choice to start using to keep the price down low on our Fruit Fly Cultures.

Later in the year, after we had used up all the orginal stock of 32oz cups, we started to use a new UK based supplier. They imported their deli pots in from China, and the Poly-fabric lids would fit, but not perfectly. After the Suez Canal issue, shipping costs raised sharply and our new supplier sort a new supply of the deli pots, but these new 32oz deli pots had a different rim, and the poly-fabric lids we used would no longer fit. We developed a solution quickly, which was a Scara Robotic Arm to process thousands of lids via a heater and cooled die to reduce the size of the lid to fit the new 32oz; still not a perfect fit but it worked. We went to place a new order for these 32oz deli pots at the start of December 2021 but only to find out that there was none available within the UK until at least February 2022. We ran out of those deli pots around the start of the festive period.

We had to quickly source a new container for the larger Fruit Fly Cultures and found a supplier within the British Isles that could supply both the 500ml (standard size) and the new 1000ml (32oz replacement) size. The only problem now was the ventilation on the lid. We started with a single white bung which has worked perfectly here, in a temperature control room, and away from the cold. Plus, the reduced ventilation has proven to encourage the maggot to climb up high within the culture and this will help support additional bursts of flies by keeping the culture moist and spreading the pupae away for the media.

However, a few people have said that their cultures have turned up wetter than normal and harder to get the flies out. This is something that happens this time of the year (winter) due to condensation on the walls of the culture during transit. We are going to start using 2 white bungs for now as a solution, until our machine to adapt the lids to use the same ventilation material as the Poly-fabric lids is ready. Just to clarify, one white bung is equal to half the ventilation of the old Poly-fabric lid, so 2 bungs will provide the same ventilation.

We are working hard on the machine that will adapt the new style lids, and will keep you updated with our progress.

Thank you for your custom.