It all started with a video of a small child with a runny nose trying – and failing – to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. He had not quite mastered the blowing part and, well, you get the idea. Appetites were lost watching the spectacle.
The video struck a chord with Mark Apelt, a 2000 graduate of the University of Virginia. He and his friends “were laughing and joking about that,” he said recently from his home in Richmond. The conversation led to comments about the “weird” tradition of blowing out candles on birthday cakes.
“There’s really no other food that you would do that to. You know, blow all over it and then serve it to your friends and family,” Apelt said.
That was in January 2020, “pre-COVID,” Apelt said. But as the coronavirus quickly spread, it became readily apparent to Apelt that the tradition of blowing out birthday candles had long outlived its expiration date.
“In the conversation, we were like, ‘Are we just weird germophobes and nobody else really cares about this?’” he said. “And then, of course, COVID hit and we were like, ‘Well, now everybody cares about germs!’”
So, armed with his UVA degree in environmental science, Apelt and his assistant, his 12-year-old son Jake, began tinkering with the idea of creating a new product to eliminate the unsanitary practice. Apelt, a stay-at-home dad and former high school environmental science teacher, and Jake suddenly had a lot of one-on-one time as Jake began what would become 15 months of Zoom school.
