Q: Won't food and food juices leak out of the drink holder?

A: No. A small sticker on the underside of the Drink Plate seals the drink holder. If the user doesn't want a drink, they can put food in the drink holder area and it will not leak out. If they want to use the drink holder, simply peel off the sticker and release the holder. A barrier wall prevents food and food juices from getting to the drink holder once it's been released. Another design in development eliminates the need to have a sticker altogether.

Q: There's already a disposable plate with a drink holder on the market. What makes the Drink Plate new and better?

A: There does exist a plastic plate on the market with a drink holder. However, this plate costs several times more than typical plates for one big reason: it doesn't stack well. Because it doesn't stack, it takes up 2~3 times the shelf space. Retailers can't afford to lose that much shelf space, so they don't stock the product. You will only find this competitive product in niche specialty party stores, and on-line. It is not a viable mass-market design. Furthermore, the depth of the drink holder is quite low so it's easy to spill tall, thin drinks like water bottles. It also can't accommodate wide beverages.

The production Drink Plate will stack flat (Note: the prototype barrier wall shown will not stack and is for demonstration purposes only.) making it easy to ship and stock. The holder expands to provide considerable support, and it can accommodate a wide variety of drinks.

Q: Why not just make a hole in the plate?

A: A hole might work okay with tapered drink holders like party cups, but you can't hold cylindrical beverages (soda cans and beer bottles) with a hole! You need bottom support to hold a cylinder, and the patent-pending expanding drink holder provides that support.

Q: On American Inventor, judge Doug Hall said this would be too expensive to manufacturer? Is he right?

A: Doug Hall is very smart and very knowledgeable but, no, he is not right. Disposable plates are made by a process call vacuum thermoforming. A sheet of plastic is sucked into a cavity, forming the plate shape. A process called "die-cutting" is then used to cut out the plate from the sheet of plastic. The cuts and holes that create the drink holder on the Drink Plate could be created at the same time the main plate is being cut out. Plastic coffee cup lids are made the same way: the drink hole is cut at the same time the lid is cut from the sheet of plastic. In other words, you will get the drink holder features "for free" (other than the cost of the die-cutting machinery, which is trivial). The sealing sticker proposed will add an insignificant cost to the product. Note that the Solo Cup company, a 2 billion dollar manufacturer of disposable plates and cups, has recently made a coffee cup lid (the "Traveler Plus", shown above) with two complete parts that's now sold through 7-11: if they can justify the cost of a complete second part with coffee cup lids (used for less time than a plate), it seems reasonable to conclude the sticker is a viable idea.