Feel of Steel

A group of Tervis employees have spent the past few weeks buzzing around some shiny new machinery tucked away in a corner of the company's plant in south Sarasota County.

The source of the happy chatter is the Venice-based drinkware maker, one of the region's largest employers, is doing something it hasn't done since a pair of engineers founded the company in 1946 in Michigan: use a material other than plastic to make its popular, permanently sealed, insulated double-wall cups that keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot.

The new material? Stainless steel.