Agribusiness Grows in Georgia: ESCOGO Smarter Starter Fluid
Tuesday, April 24th, 2018
The only thing that can ruin a good backyard barbeque is the chemical taste of lighter fluid on your food, and as the founder of a Georgia-based biofuels company, Rick Huszagh knew there was a better way.
Rick co-founded ESCOGO with Marcus Smith who quickly introduced their first product, Smarter Starter Fluid, an all-natural alternative to the petrochemical formula of traditional lighter fluids. Smarter Starter performed well on lump charcoal, but it quickly became evident to everyone at ESCOGO that consumers were using it to light the more common briquette form of charcoal, which is denser than lump charcoal and not as receptive to ESCOGO’s Smarter Starter Fluid.
The problem now was that ESCOGO had neither the research and development resources, nor the R&D budget necessary to develop a new formula or product.
To solve this problem, ESCOGO contacted the Georgia Center of Innovation for Agribusiness.
The Georgia Centers of Innovation are a value-added service of the Georgia Department of Economic Development that provide businesses the technical industry expertise, collaborative research, and strategic partnerships needed to help the state’s strategic industries connect, compete and grow.
The Center of Innovation for Agribusiness connected ESCOGO to biofuel researchers at the University of Georgia. Under the direction of UGA Research Engineer Dan Geller, PhD, ESCOGO was able to develop a formula for an all-natural accelerant that both burned well and met the strict air-quality concerns for volatile organic compounds. The resulting product, Eco Green, works as well on charcoal briquettes as it does on lump charcoal, and perhaps best of all doesn’t leave any chemical taste behind on food.
In addition to the formulation of a new product for ESCOGO, the Georgia Centers of Innovation were able to assist Rick and his team with a number of other hurdles. As well as connecting the company with the Department of Economic Development’s International Trade division, The Center of Innovation for Manufacturing assisted ESCOGO with connections to contract bottlers, and the Center of Innovation for Logistics was brought in to assist ESCOGO with their need for new shipping options.
By helping Georgia agribusinesses grow their operations and create more jobs, the Georgia Centers of Innovation are helping to create opportunities for all of rural Georgia and beyond.
