Nicholas Lodge and other equipment for the home economics department. Lodge traveled to the United States in the 1980s to demonstrate at the International Cake Exploration Societé (ICES) convention. At the time, most American cakes were covered with thick buttercream icing. Many of the students in Lodge's classes had never seen the techniques he was using to decorate cakes with royal icing and rolled fondant. Feeling like the cake decorating field had become saturated in England, Lodge decided to move to the United States and teach classes on cake decorating. During a two-week class in Atlanta, Georgia, he decided to make the
Foam hand class could produce themselves. His first prototype foam finger was actually made out of plywood and had a painting of a "number one" done in the school's colors. Fauss first sold his foam fingers at the 1978 Cotton Bowl in Dallas (University of Texas vs. Notre Dame), and he later went on to found Spirit Industries for the large scale manufacturing of foam fingers. In 1979, the first polyurethane foam version of the product was produced by Spirit Industries. Besides being sold at all manner of sporting events and venues as souvenirs, foam fingers are used as fund-raisers for schools