For Immediate Release
Just Cured Announces iPhone Availability of Just Curedô Smoked Salmon.
Cincinnati, Ohio:† Just Cured, a Cincinnati-based producer of premium smoked and cured salmon announced today its development of an iPhone application offering a virtual taste of Just Cured European style smoked salmon.† The application will utilize the recently announced iScent API to be included as part of version 3.0 of the iPhone and iPod touch operating system.† The Just Cured application is expected to be available for download at the iTunes app store shortly after the summer release of the 3.0 operating system.
The application will permit an iPhone or iPod touch to emit a short burst of the actual aroma of Just Cured smoked salmon directly to the device user.† Just Cured believes the iScent API on which the application is based will revolutionize the food industry as well as the perfume and cologne industries for which the API was originally envisioned.† For the first time, shoppers and potential purchasers of food products will be able to experience the precise aroma of the product prior to making a purchasing decision.† Moreover, as the sense of smell provides up to 90% of what people actually taste, consumers will be able to buy almost the entire eating experience of a food product — without incurring the actual cost of the physical product, without the calories, and without the time and effort of cooking.
In an exclusive interview, Just Cured founder, Michael Brown, explained the genesis of the Just Cured iPhone app and virtual smoked salmon.
The Just Cured virtual smoked salmon application, made possible by the iScent API, takes Just Cured a dramatic step closer to our initial business model.† Our original plan did not involve an actual smoked salmon product.† Instead, we were working with a major investment bank to incorporate all of the attributes of ultrapremium smoked salmon into a security.† We intended to contribute those attributes to a trust and create an infinite number of custom securities reflecting various combinations of those attributes.† A buyer would be able to choose his or her precise preferred combination of smoked salmon attributes such as sex of the fish, harvest conditions, color, texture, slice geometry, weight, mouth feel, salt, sweet, smoke, salmon flavor, portion size, serving date and time, and accent flavor components. We identified 100 taste attributes that could be mixed and matched endlessly, all in a security that could be bought, sold and traded.
Our first target market was the top restaurants of the world, and the chefs of those restaurants were giddy with excitement for the securities.† For several years, they had been experimenting with scented “airs” and flavor infused “papers” to showcase their talents and particular taste attributes.† Our product would have permitted them to serve an actual piece of paper representing each chef’s personal interpretation of perfect smoked salmon for his or her restaurant and locale.
Once the great chefs were on board, the investment bankers were convinced we had a blockbuster.† Gourmets and gourmands would clamor for the Just Cured smoked salmon securities; then down market consumers; finally, investors, pension funds and insurance companies.† The market was endless — as was our capacity to generate securities.† We were not limited by supplies of fish, air freight capacity, production facilities, packaging or distribution requirements.† Our only costs were to be investment banking, legal, and trustee fees.† Although those fees were staggeringly large, our margins would be equally eye-popping.
Then, we had a fantastic development.† An overseas group proposed to us a companion security, an insurance policy if will for buyers of the smoked salmon securities.† This group would offer securities buyers the opportunity, for a small additional price, to guarantee that the taste attributes of the securities they bought met a specified benchmark.† We called this insurance “component default protection.”† Hedge funds had an immense appetite to bear the risk of this insurance.† They viewed the premiums they would receive as virtually risk free — all we had to do was craft a benchmark that the securities could easily meet.
For that benchmark, and for the first time, we needed an actual product to benchmark.† The overseas group was hot to get to market and wanted us to borrow a competitor’s product to develop the standard.† My bankers insisted that we needed our own superpremium smoked salmon in order to market the securities and insurance.† Thus was the genesis of the product our present customers are familiar with.† The time it took to develop the smoked salmon was disastrous in one way and a blessing in another.
While we worked on the smoked salmon, the investment banking world ceased to exist as we knew it.† There was no longer any market for the derivative securities we proposed to sell.† And the default protection market literally ceased to exist.† There were no buyers, sellers or counterparties.† The Just Cured business model was a complete failure.
Fortunately, we had a terrific smoked salmon to fall back on.† Just Cured emerged from the wreckage of the financial markets as a traditional specialty food producer, but was a shadow of the blockbuster financial products company that we envisioned.
For the past several months, I have been exploring how to virtualize Just Cured smoked salmon utilizing not the financial markets of the investment bankers, but the Web 2.0 world of social media and similar tools.† That market is in its infancy; and I was convinced that huge volumes and margins wold be available if I could simply harness the power of Web 2.0.
Enter the Apple iScent API.† With iScent, Just Cured will virtualize the aroma and flavor components of our premium smoked salmon and deliver it effortlessly, for us and consumers, through the iTunes store and iPhones and iPod touches.† The virtual smoked salmon application will drive traditional sales as well as open virtual salmon markets previously unavailable to us.† I am excited that the market for virtual smoked salmon could be even larger than we expected for the salmon securities.
Just Cured will announce additional product details, such as pricing, as the application release date approaches.
For further information, contact Michael Brown at Just Cured.