Hello, I'm Ben Diamond, a product manager and inventor of consumer products. And in this podcast series, Why the Fork, we're going to be looking at the everyday products in your home and office. The type of things that you take for granted, but are really quite clever. We're looking at the humble objects you touch every day and asking,
why are they like this? We're going to be exploring how politics, economics and social change encourage the development of new solutions, how great engineers and designers came up with them, and how ideas don't just come from nowhere, they're inspired by trends and needs. You'll also see how often the designs we've ended up with aren't quite perfect, but are good enough. But that's not all. We're going to be chatting to some of the designers and engineers tasked with developing
the next generation of these products. to see what's on the horizon and if they will evolve again or disappear entirely. This is a podcast by D2M and we'll be talking with Phil Staunton, our product design expert, later. In this episode, we're going to be looking at our first mundane product. Well, actually, it's quite a fabulous innovation that you definitely have in your home. The humble tin opener. Before we can explore why the tin opener is such a clever little device,
we're going to go back in time. You may know the tin opener was created 50 years after the invention of the tin can and the rotary opener, that's the one in your drawer, 100 years after. You will probably wonder why it took so long for someone to work out how on earth to open the container people had been preserving food in for the last 100 years. Let's step back in time. 230 years. It's in 1795, the heyday of the Napoleonic era, and France is fast becoming
the biggest empire in the world. But it's hit a snag. Without a good food supply, the French Navy's operations are at risk. It must find regular friendly ports in order to fill its ships with salted meats and fresh food. What Napoleon and his armies really needed was a way of preserving food long enough for it to get around the world. So like many great innovations, this one started with a political push from the government for
12 ,000 francs. Napoleon asked the inventors of the time to find a way to preserve food that wasn't salted meat in wooden barrels. Step in Nicolas Appert, whose process to preserve pasturized food in glass jars was fantastic. The beef three -fourths done, I put into jars which I filled up with broth. Having corked and wrapped them, I placed them upright in a cauldron. The next day, I besmeared the corks with resin in order to forward the bottles to different seaports.
At the end of a year and a year and a half, the broth and boiled meat were found as good as if made the day they were eaten. His preservation technique was brilliant. It's the first time that food could be cooked and stored for longer periods. It also took him about 20 years to work out. Next, Philippe de Girard in France noted the fragile glass would break and decided to do the same process, using metal cans. Now, these tin cans aren't the ones in your cupboard. These
are thick rolled steel. Very similar to the processing technologies available to the Navy. Think like little cannons. And this is common in innovation. Technology being adapted from one industry to another. Thick steel cans lined with protective and expensive tin to stop reaction with food. Our cans are still coated today. Oh, and sealed with lead, which is poisonous. He tried to patent
it. And then, like great innovations, it was then stolen by the British and taken up by Brian Donkin, who's like the superhero canning, who commercialised it with the first canning lines in London. We see this pattern often when invention happens in one part of the world and is commercialised by another. The British Navy, having successfully bought or stolen this great innovation from the French, started supplying their armies with canned foods in 1831. That's only 36 years after Napoleon's
competition. You'd imagine at this point someone said, let's invent something to open this delicious food. But let's just think about the situation. These newfangled cans are replacing barrels of salted meats on ships. And to open barrels, you'd use crowbars and hammers and chisels and the like. And military ships have tools aplenty. All you need to do is use the same sort of tools
you already have lying around the ship. And the cans are so much better, the food's so much tastier for the troops, that you're willing to compromise with the bother of opening. Many times, existing products are good enough that consumers don't ask for a better solution. And in this case, the food in the tin can is so much better than the barrels of salt that the inconvenience is just too small. This explains why it took so long for the opener to be invented. And our societies
were very different. The well -off would have had servants and would have had the tools available in big houses and therefore there was no need for a specific opener. And servants are not educated to invent a better process. A working class person, if you're able to afford a can, you're very likely to be in the mechanical trades and therefore you'd have your own tools as part of your job.
Until there was an emerging middle class who didn't have servants, were in clerical work and didn't have the tools, there was no need for dedicated openers. One of the brilliant advantages of the can is that it allows you to preserve food for longer. This is, you know, 100 years before full refrigeration. In the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851, 40 years after the first cans, We start seeing tins being proposed for the middle classes, as well as luxury foodstuffs
being available to people all year round. Sardines and truffles, artichokes and turtle soup, tin desserts, strawberries, peaches or peas. The exhibition is attended by royalty and about a third of the population in Britain. It's like the CES of the Victorian era. It's the biggest mass marketing event with demonstrations of the latest technology including lifts and photographs and food from all over the world brought to you
by the tin can. And there was an evolution of the tin can forming process, from heavy metal welding to forming and seaming, driven not by the need to get in, but the need to get the cost down and speed of production up, the cans themselves becoming thinner and standardised. With this great exhibition marketing push to both the wealthy and the middle classes, and the technology of the thinner cans, now an opener was wanted and
feasible. It was time for the tin opener. The earliest can opener, a hook knife in 1840 in Britain and then 1858 from America, are a bit naff, cumbersome and complex and not suitable for domestic use. It was Robert and Frederick Yates, a UK instrument manufacturer, who developed an improved can opener in the 1850s, just after the Great Exhibition. Yates' is a G -shaped implement. You might have one on your Swiss Army knife or on the side of an opener today. You push the
pointy end through the can's surface. which takes a lot of force, and then using the curved sharp edge to ratchet through the lid, working along the thin edge. If you've ever used one, they're great for getting into the tin, but it's hard work to open. But so much better than the hammer and chisels that preceded them, and suitable for domestic, servant -free middle classes that the canning industry were targeting. In fact, when we hit the Second World War, we were still
mainly using these ratchets. A folding lever version, the P -38, was distributed to the US Army troops for their canned rations. After 138 years, we were still using the very similar technologies to open cans. There are limitations. You cut yourself on the sharp raised edges and contamination of the food because of the coatings and swarf from the tin can itself. The opener was slow. Basically a sharp knife being hammered in as late as 1950. There's room for improvement. We
don't know what the inventive process was. Perhaps a creative workshop or a series of many prototypes. But in 1925, the US Starwheel Company developed the first modern rotating gripper can opener. Followed a year later by Charles Arthur Bunker. which is the design you have in the drawer today. Both use the familiar two -handed levers that help grip the can like a pair of pliers and forces the first puncture of the can. The star will
drag the cam along the tin. It's simpler and cheaper, but it was superseded by the bunker. This clamps onto the side of the tin, which is then guided around the crimped edge of the can, the bit that sticks up, focusing the force on the lid. A pizza cutter like Will, of hardened steel, slices the thinnest part of the lid using shear force. What's fascinating is the shearing effect means there's less force applied by you, like a pair of scissors slicing through wrapping
paper. The smooth edge of the can helps guide the opener. Holding the rotary wing acts as a lever and it magnifies the force being applied to the metal. A set of knurled cogs transfers that movement of the wings, drives the cannon around and rotates the cutting wheel with consistent force. It's quicker and safer and leaves no sharp serrations, much more effective than the ratcheting of the old Yates' G -shaped openers. A good sharp rotary opener will leave very little shards and
a smooth cut. Overall... A very clever invention. The similarities with the Starwheel and the Bunker are perhaps not surprising. Rotary cutting was a known art in fabric cutting and refining it to work on the can was complex but within reach. But they are very similar in design and operation and it's not surprising that Starwheel took Bunker to court for patent infringement like our big tech companies do today. Starwheel lost. On a technicality, the position of the knurled roller.
It's flat on the top of the can for Starwell, but not for Bunker. When the defendant's device is placed at right angles to the top for the purpose of trying to cut the wall of the can, thereby preventing the knurled roller from performing the function that it does in the case of plaintiff's patent, the knurled roller lies flat on the top of the can. That cannot be done with the defendant's device. That's the District Court of Missouri
in 1930. Interestingly, in the case, Bunker describes they cut the side wall, not the top of the can, but consumers just found the easiest way to use the opener, like the existing Yates' G -shaped, through the lid, even though the designers intended it to cut the side wall. Much later from the 60s, we start to see the electric tin openers, and Paul Posniak and Keith Longstaff, a sidewall seam opener. That's those that are specific to
open the sidewall rather than the lid. But fundamentally, the rotary opener design hasn't changed much in the last 60 odd years. Now it's not perfect, it still leaves sharp edges, although nowhere near as dangerous as Yates's, with its serrated edge. And you need good dexterity. Now I know what you're thinking. Ben, what about key tin openers? Think Tom and Jerry's sardines. A key that you wind round the middle of a can of bully brief or spam that allows rectangular containers.
They had been around for about 30 years after the Yateses, but they were costly and unreliable. Meanwhile, in the drinks can category, the ring pull, which was developed in the 60s and eventually replaced with the aluminium pushing, was transferred to the tin can. Suddenly, you no longer need an opener. You can just lift that ring pull end and access the beans. Is this game over for the opener? Well, we have about 40 cans in our larder. All have the ring pull, except for four of them.
And these are on the economy brands. For economy brands, the ring pull is just not an option. It's too expensive. This suggests that the opener has a big role to play in allowing people to access affordable preserved food. Then there is plastic packs. They can be resealed, are lighter and easier to get into, and have a better marketing image. But we all know how bad multi -laminate plastics are for the environment. And we also have refrigeration and more glass packs, so less
need of the can and its opener. But these methods of food preservation use a lot of energy and create a lot of waste. So I wonder, with a very easy to recycle can, which does not use energy to store or contribute to plastic waste, see a resurgence as energy gets more expensive and being sustainable becomes more important. Will we therefore see a new generation of canned goods, canned marketing like the Great Exhibition and
a resurgence of the tin opener? Although the fundamental principles of the wheels and cogs and levers haven't changed much, the likes of Oxo Good Grips and Joseph & Joseph have made beautiful designs that are more comfortable to hold and that are more ergonomic to use, particularly with those with arthritis. So I wonder, have we reached peak tin opener? The can preserves food wonderfully. It's easy to recycle, really versatile and has a standardised format without
needing power. It's incredibly convenient. A lot of innovation can still be done to get rid of the sharp edges, help people who have mobility limitations and provide a really cost -effective solution for economy brands. The experience of opening tins of beans still leaves a lot to be desired. They get caught on the sharp edges, cleaning the can, the lid scratches my sink. And typically, when there's a category that's underdeveloped, think tonic water before fever
tree, it's ripe for disruption. I mean... Where are the laser cutter tin openers? We cut steel in factories using lasers. A mini one could instantly slice through the lid. No problem when you have arthritis. So I think more innovation to come. On a journey that spans 200 years, we've shown how the tin can started as a competition in order to feed the Navy. We've seen why it took 100 years of invention, marketing, social change and supply chain improvement for us to see the
rotary openers we're familiar with. Why innovation has continued to apply on both the tin, on preserving food and on the can opener itself. And the journey is not over yet. The can has a long way to go. And with the sustainable challenges we face, there will be more innovations on the humble tin opener to come. Let's talk more about the tin opener. Today we're joined by Phil Staunton from D2M. Hi Ben. And why are you an expert on tin openers? I'm not sure I'm an expert on tin
openers. I'm a product designer by background and for the last 15 years I've run a small product design company and we've worked on all sorts of consumer products, some of which... I can't say so much you can see behind me because it's a podcast. You have to imagine, listeners, a smorgasbord of products from backpacks to coffee, percolators, and some strange medical -looking appliances as well in the corner, I think. So, Phil, this is the hardest question of the podcast.
When you use a tin opener, are you on the top of the can or on the side? Are you a bunker or a star wheel man? I am an on the top kind of guy. But the problem actually in my house is that our tin opener is designed for left -handed people because my wife and my eldest son are left -handed. And I find that a left -handed can opener does not work if you are right -handed. So four weeks of research in tin openers, I never
knew there was a left and right tin opener. So that's clearly the first problem that any of
our designers need to overcome. overcome overcome is an ambidextrous you know yeah because my wife really struggles with the normal ones and then actually i really struggle with the left -handed one which basically now means that my tin opener is my wife because i'm like i cannot use this thing you do it you've listened to our fascinating story the tin opener the fact that it took over 50 years for that first opener to appear as a designer is that surprising It is surprising,
and that's partly because everything is so fast now and design has sped up massively in the last 10 years. So with 3D printing technology and 3D scanning and obviously all the smorgasbord of research opportunities via the internet and surveys and all this kind of stuff, actually you can move really fast in design now. So it was a bit surprising how long it took. And it was really fascinating to hear what you were
saying about why that was. One of the things that jumped out, really, was that it came out of a design competition, effectively. Now, I thought design competitions were a relatively new thing. You know, you think kind of like Earth Prize or whatever with William and Kate. X -Rise. Yeah. But it's not. It's really old. And it's been around ages by the sound of things. So do you think Matin has a future? Like, we've got the plastic packaging. We've got refrigeration.
We no longer have to ship stuff on ships to keep our navy. Well, maybe we do. Is the tin can dead or is there a bright? Aluminium can in the future. I don't think it's dead. There's a few reasons for that. One is that actually the population of the world is still expanding. And obviously, in terms of developing countries, people are getting wealthier bit by bit. And therefore, there'll be more of a demand from those countries
for canned goods and things as well. And then also, this might have a lesser effect, but there's a small group of people that like to prepare for when nuclear war breaks out. And they definitely need stuff. I swear the word bunker came out.
They definitely need stuff. need a lot of stuff in tins why is it not easy to open the tin opening it yeah and it's not easy to open the tin because because they actually vary quite a lot so in terms of the thickness and the thickness of the rim at the top and all that kind of stuff and if you want to do it in a safe way that doesn't end up with a sharp edge and doesn't end up with shards or bits of the the kind of paper wrapper kind of disappearing into the food it's actually
quite a challenge and then technically it's a real challenge because It's actually got to be really rigid. And that's why in some ways the kind of original metal can openers from like 30, 40 years ago still work really well now is because they were made in a much more expensive way with much more kind of durable and robust materials. I think a lot of the problems with current can openers is they're made as cheap as possible, inevitably in the Far East for the
mass market. But unless they're very rigid, they don't really work. And that's very hard from a designer's perspective because we're trying to make something that's highly rigid. and cheap. And those two things just don't go hand in hand. If we just paid more for our tin opener, would we get a better one then? We'd have better materials
or is it? I think that's true. Absolutely. I'm very keen to talk to our next guest, Rob, and ask him the same question because he's done a lot more in terms of the design of the tin opener than I have. But yeah, if you pay more, you would certainly get something. Let's put it differently.
I think if consumers were prepared to pay more for a premium product, then I think we definitely end up with better tin openers that were more ergonomic, easier to use, less pressure on the hands, safer result by the time the tin was opened. But if there was a tin opener on the shelves for £250, is anyone going to buy it? Probably
not. But I guess this is the big question. So if we look at other categories, and the vacuum cleaner category is the classic market for this, where no one would believe you'd spend £250, £500 on a... vacuum cleaner and obviously several brands have now kind of made lots of great products for that category why is it that no one's done the same thing on the tin opener yeah it's an interesting question and my first answer to it without your example would have been because
it's not on show and because no one else sees it So in the pushchair market, for example, pushchairs used to be, you know, 100, 200 quid. And then Bugaboo came along and everyone was paying 500. And now you can pay, you know, two grand. And actually I just saw on just the other day for 4 ,000 pounds, a tie up between a pushchair brand and Lamborghini. They'd done this kind of co
-branded pushchair. It was crazy. But the thing is about that product, you know, people are seen pushing it and want to be seen pushing the right one and want people to know how much money they've
spent. And I think the thing about the... your example with a vacuum cleaner is people don't see that it's in a cupboard so you know why would you spend kind of more on it there's another big question in this question which is you know are those expensive vacuum cleaners really such a step up um that it's worth that money or did people want to be talking in the coffee shop with their mates about the fact they just bought this amazing new vacuum cleaner and it does this
that and the other and you wouldn't believe it and it it cost this amount but you know we could afford it And I don't know the answer to that as a product designer, to be honest. But I probably ought to. I think there's a lovely tension here in that cans are considered to be very cheap. And you think the classic Andy Warhol picture of all the Campbell's soup. And that was inspired by the fact that he grew up very poor and they
were very cheap. And because they're considered... a low -cost, convenient food, the tin opener is then associated with that. And in fact, we heard, you know, at the Great Exhibition, you could buy turtle soup in this, you know, really premium foods in it. So I wonder if that's where the innovation needs to happen first, that the can needs to be re -elevated before the can opener can become the kitchen aid of can openers. Yeah,
you may well be right. And my hope would be that as we move away from plastics and as we get more concerned about microplastics in all of our brains, now and all that kind of stuff that maybe we will move to something that is inherently more recyclable um and and i'd love to see some food brands going you know we're only putting our stuff in tins um you know rather than than plastic because i think tin is and metal is still associated with a higher value than plastic and so hopefully
maybe there'll be a premiumization there and then maybe the can opener can come off the back of that in terms of its kind of premium nature as well so it's almost like the craft beer, you know, how that's gone from bottles into beautifully crafted cans with wonderful artwork. And that's really lifted that category. Whether they're ring pulls or not might be the question, whether you need the tin opener. Yeah, that was actually one of the questions I had for you, Ben. Oh,
go on, go for that, go for that. Would you rather have been the patent holder on the can opener or the patent holder of the ring pull? Oh, the ring pull. Yeah, the ring pull. And the ring pull's fascinating because, You've got to get it cheap. It's mass manufactured. You can license it to everybody and you get it out much easier.
And I think massive canning lines, because they're producing big volume, it's much easier to put that innovation on that line than it is to get a single beautiful tin opener that you might buy once when you do your kitchen or once when you move out of home through all of the retailer channels. So I think although the new tin opener, the future tin opener will be amazing. financially, the ring pool is definitely the better innovation and the bigger impact you can have. Yeah, I think
I completely agree. But what's interesting is in my work with D2M, as the founder of that business, we've worked with 1600 odd clients over the last kind of 15 years. And none of them have come with something really unglamorous and unsexy like a ring pool. They all want the amazing innovation that it's got all these bells and whistles on it and all this kind of stuff. Whereas actually, a lot of the time, the money is in the mundane,
isn't it? I think that's why we're doing this podcast as well, because, you know, we're creative people. We're very good at coming up with the brilliant new ideas and sexy, you know, products. The stuff that has a real impact on the world is the zipper, you know, YKK, that type of thing. And those ideas are really hot. That's where they're all challenging. They're really hard engineering -wise, really hard business -wise,
and really hard design -wise. But they have such a massive impact and wouldn't it be great to do one of those and come up with the spoon or the fork or something that everyone uses? Yeah,
no, clearly it would be amazing. And I think that's the other thing is that people don't necessarily realise that something like the ring pull or the zipper has probably got 10 times as much cost to develop as something that's much more on the front of it technically complicated because you've got to get the commercials of it down pat. because it's got to be so cheap and so reliable every single time. But that costs a huge amount of money because you're going through constant
iterations to nail that design down. And guys, that's why we love design. That's why we love design. Phil, that was brilliant. Thank you. Now we're going to switch to look at the future of tin openers and introduce our guest, Robert Van Varick. Hi, Rob. Welcome to the show. Where are you, first of all? I am calling in from the east coast of the United States. I'm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is just north of Philadelphia. Is it a big area of tin can consumption?
That's the most important question. I mean, isn't all of America? I think, you know, I think we love our canned food. Maybe less so these days, but yeah. So, Rob. First, can you introduce yourself to everybody? Absolutely. So I am the Chief Design Officer at Michael Graves Design. Michael Graves Design is a storied design house and consumer brand as well that has really been transformative in the world of design over the last many decades,
four decades at least. We've created some of the most... iconic products that people use in their everyday lives and we really love uncovering those sort of opportunities in the sort of humble everyday objects that tend to go overlooked which is why i believe you reached out to me for our conversation today so i'm really excited to be here thank you for having me you've designed lots of different products for you what's the one that you felt has been the biggest impact
the one that you're most proud of particularly If it was overlooked? Oh, wow. Well, there's a lot to unpack in that question. I've worked on hundreds and hundreds of products over the time that we've been there. And some of the top hits I would say would be our transport chair with Stryker Medical that's designed specifically for the hospital environment. It's not every day that you get to sort of reinvent such a sort
of archetypal product as the wheelchair. but also just the time spent working on housewares for companies like Target. And we just got to design so many things. So, you know, my first products that I patented were done for Target and were in and out of the store in a blink. So there was a lot of learning about how innovation performs at the shelf. So, you know, if somebody's looking at something new and they've never seen it before. They're just going to move right on.
It was a really good education in terms of understanding the constraints of where something's sold, who the customer is, what the price point is, which we can dive into. But more and more, what we're really proud of is this focus on us being the most accessible design brand. And we are looking at everything through that filter of physical accessibility, financial accessibility. And even, you know, what Michael started his career on
and made his name in was humanism. But what we like to sort of refer to it as like cognitive accessibility. It was just that you looked at something, you understand what it was. When you talk about the cognitive, I always think about the handle on the door that says push. And you always pull it. You always pull it. It doesn't matter if it says push. It's instinctive design. This episode's about the tin opener, the can
opener. Is it tin or can in the US? We do call it a can opener, but I can call it a tin opener. I love that. But if I slip up and call it a can opener, you know why. So the most important question for me is, are you an on top or on the side tin opener? So, you know, such a fascinating question. I even tracked down. It's not mine. It's my business partner, Donald Strum, who's our president, who has worked at our company for over 40 years now.
But this was the original Target can opener, which is not much different from OXO's can opener, which this has been in my drawer for probably 25 years now. So this is on the side. And a lot
of it's because I don't open a lot of cans. It really has more recently come to our attention, especially through that like accessibility lens of the on top one and how just like having one handle and not having to like have that grasping motion that this is so much easier to just sort of put it on the can and then just start to like turn and magically it cuts through the side of the can. I don't know. I think my now that I have this this new one, I'm going to be. trying
that out and using that more often. It's fascinating. You talked about accessibility almost straight away with that. And it fits really well with the Michael Graves premise, doesn't it? One hand being easy to turn. These are simple things. Given the kind of thousands of products that you've worked on, and I don't know how many tin openers specifically you've designed, but have we reached kind of the pinnacle of design of the tin opener? I can confidently say no, we
haven't. And I say that because we're working on a new one. It probably won't like kind of hit where you guys are thinking of like, you know, where things could go technological wise. But I think there still is space, especially from an accessibility standpoint. I grew up with an electric can opener in my kitchen. It was a installation there. So whenever you had to open a can, it was so simple. But now it's like, who's going to use up counter space for that
object? Which is too bad because we designed one in the early days for JCPenney. It only made it as a concept. It never made it to market. But it was one of probably one of my favorite objects from that collaboration. But it never saw the light of day. And it just, man, it had so much personality. But I think to answer your question more specifically, we're always going to see advancement in these products. It's just always it's hard to predict where that advancement
is going to be. The pop tops of cans sort of eliminates the need for a can opener. So it becomes more of a commodity item. People stop innovating as much on it. Similar to how we saw the integration of ice dispensers on refrigerators really kill
the. ice tray design ethos and advancement you know like that used to be a fun object that people were like how else could we make it easy to get ice cubes out of a tray and then someone was like we're just going to make them come out of the refrigerator and they were like oh that's that's really smart i think innovation oftentimes we innovate tools out of existence but a can opener is one of those like foundational items that I think will be around for a long, long
time. Because I think as you pointed out, like there's still just going to be the need for like a low cost can that doesn't invest in that extra material and money to peel the top off. So you got to find a way to open it. And it's in your best interest to have a tool to be able to do that. That isn't just, you know, a hammer and chisel. Ben's got a fantastic idea that he wants to run past you as an expert in tin opener design. Do you want to share it? This is the inventor,
isn't it? We cut steel in our factories using lasers. We have laser cut for steel up to really thick steel. Why isn't there a laser cutting for the tin opener? You put it on, it zaps the lid, holds the lid with a magnet, and you just pop it in recycling. There's no swerve. There's no beans being stuck everywhere. Why? Why is it not there? Ben, you put me in a hard position because I don't like being the naysayer when we're brainstorming. You're going to be the dream
killer, aren't you? I feel like I'm going to. You know what? I think that one is an answer that just comes down to cost and technology and the investment to get that technology small enough at just the right size and just the right power.
I think what it would need is... something more than just cutting through a can you know like i feel like it could cook the beans it could cut the can and then now we're talking the beans yeah this is why you never invite designers to a brainstorm you know guys this is classic but i think trees much the way the can took off as an innovation was because it was needed to fuel armies you know it was needed to fuel navies um And so there was enough of a market size to
really promote that level of investment and innovation and that investment in capital equipment. All it takes is a tinkerer, you know, somebody who's going to sit there and like work on making this happen. It could be a 16 -year -old. you know, at a tech school who's like, I did it. I've figured it out. It's not just about the invention. Yes, we can make a better tin opener, but you've got to tell people about it, whether it's at Target or whatever the channel is. You've got to market
it. There's got to be a big enough business case to warrant that investment, both the design and the capital and the marketing. And that market's got to be really appealing for us to warrant that change. And is that one of the reasons why the tin opener's kind of stagnated? aside from the aging population and maybe the questions around sustainability, that there isn't that market pool to kind of warrant the lasers and the diamond -cutted blades or whatever might
be the next innovation? I think so. And it's a mixture of that the market isn't there as much as there is also opportunity elsewhere that people are going to focus on. And it's just not the shiny object. But to me, that's always where something is ripe for innovation. You know, something's ripe for something new is when it stagnates and people are overlooking it. Then a company gets the opportunity to come along and rethink it. But to your point, Ben, marketing is so fun.
So I talked about my first patent. It was for some tongs. I have them. They're here. These are the tongs, right? You know, it was this fun project. And I remember driving from, where I live north of Philadelphia down to DC to visit my sister. And that drive, I was just thinking about tongs and just thinking about other objects that close, but don't like have anything to pop
open. And I thought about nail clippers and how like nail clippers have that fun sort of twist around handle and it folds down and they're closed. I'm like, well, why can't we do something like that? And so that was really the impetus to these. And so when you're done with these, you just twist that. black heart and it nests in there. And so it's never going to come apart. And it was like, we were all so excited about this guys. We were like, this is genius. We are going to
make so much money off of this. We patented it. And it was in and out of the store in a year because we would walk into the store and find these things just like pulled apart and bent because people didn't understand it. It was a hard lesson in innovation requires education. And the more you're going to innovate. the more
you're going to have to educate. Rob, you talked about, you know... what makes it to the top of the list in terms of what you're going to work on next um and that's fascinating for me because you know we've we've worked on you know nearly 2 000 products as a design agency and we're constantly being that dream killer for people and going look i'm really sorry but you haven't thought about the fact yes that's the most amazing thing ever but it's going to cost 300 000 pounds just
to tool it you know and all this kind of stuff so what makes it to the top of your list when you guys go yes that that's a winner that's what we're going to work on next I mean, it's a great question. And there is a pretty straightforward list of constraints, one of which you just touched on is tooling. So, you know, we're pursuing a new line of gadgets, and we've budgeted, you know, a certain amount of money for tooling.
But then in doing so, we're, you know, we have a strategic partner that we're going to launch it with, and that's going to help with the marketing. So that's a big lift. That's a big investment. That's where we look for partnerships in doing it. But on items that we're like, hey, could we bring this to market ourselves? We have to think about tooling. We have to think about inventory. We have to think about just the competitive landscape. Who are we up against? Designers love furniture,
but furniture is like the most. competitive, like saturated market, there's so much furniture out there to choose from. So we're always looking for these kind of what we term opportunity gaps, where when we're meeting with people, when we're spending time with users in their home, which is a big part of our approach, you know, we just spend a lot of time in people's homes, invited, of course, but Sometimes not. Sometimes you're at someone's house making notes on how they use
a tin opener. I'm not allowed to go to Nebraska anymore. But no, it's, you know, it's just you spend time and we're usually there to ask them about one topic, one area. But we're really eyes wide open when we're there and we're looking at everything. We're looking at their space and we'll often go off on tangents because opportunities
really are everywhere. it takes this really kind of magical blend of looking for something that nobody's doing, but doing it in a way that's going to be like easy to grasp and easy to understand. And that's really the sort of like mix that we're always looking for. People always talk about wanting something to be intuitive, but they also want it to be innovative. And we're like, well, those are two very different things because intuition.
isn't a real thing. It's intuition is a learned experience that you have learned how something works by seeing it done before. You know, we know to push buttons because we've grown up pushing buttons. For us, we're always looking at this, this learning curve. And we're looking for opportunities that are more down at the like low end of that learning curve, leveraging known behaviors, known rituals, you know, because changing habits and changing rituals, that's where, that's where
you need a lot of marketing. You need a lot of buzz, you know, you need a lot of product placement and celebrity endorsement. And you got to get people to be like, have this fear of missing out of like, oh, well, I want to, I want to open my tins with lasers. I'm getting rid of this old mechanical thing. Did you guys hear they have lasers for this now? Seems like a real hazard
with children, though, the lasers. Yeah, as you were talking, I was actually thinking about the regulatory challenges of lasers and tin openers. Yeah, I think that government agency is going to get that application. I am going to go away and do the calculations now, though. What's next for the tin opener? If there was one thing you could do tomorrow to make the tin or the can or the food preservation perfect, what would it be? I think you're going to see that from
us in about a year. And man, but what a cliffhanger. So coming up in season two. I think the same opportunity exists for the tin opener as exists for so many other objects in our lives. And that is simply to look at making them better, making them easier to use and making them more delightful. You know, just we need more joy in our lives now more than ever. Please, people, make things more joyful. Rob, thank you so much for joining
us. Phil, it's been an absolute pleasure. Don't forget to like, subscribe and tell your friends, please. You know, anyone who loves design, engineering and tin openers, they want to listen to this podcast.