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Aussie's accidental invention turns $250,000 profit and becomes caravan cult buy

It’s bad enough spending $8 on a punnet of blueberries, but even worse when you find them rotting in your fridge a few days later. It’s a problem for any fresh fruit and veg consumer. But one Aussie mum has stumbled on a way to keep hers fresh for up to six weeks. Fiona Raphael told Yahoo Finance this discovery was a "total accident" and led to a new business idea.

“I was on maternity leave and using cloth nappies," she said.

"They come with a wet bag to store the nappies, and I started using them for other things in the house instead of a plastic bag – for wet swimmers or a wet umbrella, for example.”

Made from PUL (polyurethane laminate), these bags keep moisture contained, and Raphael also started using them in her fridge to store her veggies.

“It worked well. There was no condensation building up and the veg lasted longer,” she said.

But Raphael’s real “ah ha” moment came when she bought a bunch of mint, stored it in a wet bag in her fridge and promptly forgot about it.

“Three weeks later, I remembered,” she said.

“I assumed it would be all rotten. So I was amazed when it was still pristine. I decided to see how long it would stay fresh and even after six weeks in the wet bag it was fine.”

'Mild dispair' before influx of orders

Due to go back to her job as a criminal lawyer, it didn’t seem like the ideal time to start a small business, but Raphael was convinced she’d hit on something brilliant.

“The more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to do it,” she said.

In early 2022, her conviction saw her make a patent application before she approached manufacturers about her design, which included two layers.

A damp cotton inner layer would keep the veggies hydrated, while an outer layer prevented them from drying out too soon.

It took about nine months to develop the final product, and in that time, she created her website, Produce Pod, to sell them.

But despite her enthusiasm and belief that it would take off, it didn’t.

“It was slow going for the first nine months,” Raphael said.

“I’d get one or two orders a week. I wasn’t giving up my day job.

"I knew I needed to advertise better, but I didn’t want to sink more money into something I didn’t know anything about.”

And it was in this funk of what Raphael called “mild despair” that something crazy happened.

In June 2023, Raphael woke up to an influx of orders.

Hundreds were coming through, and she could hardly pack them quickly enough before the next batch arrived.

“I went on Instagram and discovered a caravanning influencer, Kat Sobczyk, had posted a story on her page saying how good the Produce Pods were for keeping things fresh on the road," she said.

“It was wild. I ended up having no pods left, but there was so much demand, so I ordered more, and they all sold out too.

"The caravanners became this huge customer base, which is funny because I’ve never been in a caravan.”

The product worked perfectly for their compact fridges and particularly as there’s often a long time between their supermarket shops.

Families who said they’d given up on veggies were telling Raphael they could buy them again.

Caravan cult buy

Sobczyk followed up with more posts.

“It’s not hard to recommend a product we absolutely froth on and use Every. Single. Day,” she wrote.

“They really do keep your produce fresher, for longer.”

“I need to order these,” commented followers.

“What a cracker idea, thank you for sharing,” said another.

Raphael lapped up the love and, with Sobczyk’s advice developed an affiliate program to get others on board.

She also started advertising properly on Facebook and Google and the business gained so much momentum she was able to take a break from her legal job to focus on it full time at the end of 2024.

“Last year we made $250,000 in revenue and that’s grown even more this year,” Raphael said.

“I’ve got other products now too like a bowl cover and shopper bags and I’m moving into wholesale so I have stockists all over the country.”

Two years on and caravaners remain some of Produce Pods biggest customers.

“I’m so grateful to Kat. She’s still my biggest online supporter,” she said.

Produce Pods

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