Traditional dessert toppings were labor intensive, messy and inconsistent. Rich’s needed a faster, simpler, cleaner way to make whipped topping. During a creativity session in Rich’s innovation process a group exercise in movie imagery led one participant to link a scene from the movie
Animal House. It drove a wish for “a bagged whipped cream that looks like a ‘zit.’ While initially absurd, it led to a breakthrough package design, where Rich's whipped topping packages would be in the form of pastry bags, ready for pastry chefs to just open and decorate with no mess, no fuss.