A few years ago I did a lot of research (Google) i

A few years ago I did a lot of research (Google) into pre-filled agar petri plates. Many of the sites I looked at provided instruction on how to do it yourself and/or sold do-it-yourself kits. Since pre-filled agar plate products were readily available commercially, I assumed the reason for anyone doing it themselves was solely for the reason of cost savings (when I did a stint as an undergrad in a research lab, we built whatever equipment that we could ourselves to save money).

That was before Nanologix's flatpack and all its benefits, pricing and product availability. Reflecting on my assumption, it doesn't make any sense. Who would want to do-it-yourself (other than those that want the experience) particularly when it costs more than it would to purchase it from Nanologix? (one kit I found on Amazon costs $33 + $8 shipping and only makes enough agar for 20 plates). We know that storage and shelf life is an issue with other agar filled plate products and most labs have limited space for keeping a freezer full of product. I think these factors are more plausible in explaining all the websites devoted to teaching people how to pour their own plates.

Much of the content on these websites seemed to be written by people that work in university or high school labs or by science minded people that wanted to make it simple to introduce microbiology to kids at home. Obviously there is a market segment here and its probably much bigger than I gave credit to previously.