Rats Test Potential Flavor Additives for Food

Opertech Bio Inc. is a new Philadelphia based start-up company that is using rats to test potential flavor additives for human food. The brains behind Opertech, a pharmacologist by training and his business partner, R. Kyle Palmer and Scott Horvitz, invented and use a rat testing machine for this. Rats apparently have the ability to identify sweet, salty, and bitter flavors quite quickly with a high rate of accuracy. Everybody knows rats have an appetite for human leftovers, usually found among other trash in dumpsters, well at Opertech this translates to a business opportunity. The rats at Opertech have already identified a new no calorie sweetener that has been validated in human taste tests. The rat taste testers are faster and less expensive than their human counter parts and therein lies the draw for the food and beverage industries, who are always on the search for tasty artificial and natural flavors. The rats are trained to press certain levers that correspond with the flavor they've been taught to identify in order to receive a food pellet reward. Opertech has one full time human employee and periodic interns, along with the rat taste testers and they hope their efforts will land on store shelves soon. Kinda gives new meaning to the old Life cereal ad slogan, He likes it! Hey Mikey!