Reese's Popcorn Salt is packaged in a glass jar, with a rim around the mouth of the jar, over which a perforated soft plastic cap snaps. There is a normal plastic screw lid to keep salt in and moisture out. To use, unscrew the outer lid, exposing the perforated lid through which the desired amount of salt can be sprinkled on the popcorn.
The problem arises when the perforated cap is improperly trimmed. Typically, a high-volume plastic injection molded part will be produced in a multi-cavity mold with runners between the cavities to allow the plastic to flow into all cavities. When the parts are ejected, they will be connected by the runners and trimmed into single parts. If the blend of cuts is imprecise, there will be a small nib protruding where the mismatch occurs. In this case, if the nib does not extend beyond the minor diameter of the cap thread, everything works well.
However, if the perforated lid is slightly concaved outward when the lid is screwed down tightly, the sides of the perforated top flare out. The nibs can move to a position where they are able to engage the screw threads on the cap and move off the jar. This causes an unsuspecting user to empty the entire jar of salt onto their popcorn if they are not paying attention. If you do notice, a few seconds with an ice pick will extract the perforated top, which can then be snapped into place, and you can enjoy your popcorn as you like it -- until the next time anyway. Or you can take a sharp knife and try to remove the nibs, which the monkeys left for your enjoyment.
This entry was submitted by Ralph Wirtel and edited by Rob Spiegel.
Tell us your experiences with Monkey-designed products. Send stories to Rob Spiegel for Made by Monkeys.
The thing that bothers me is that I'm getting use to products that don't work or don't work properly. It appears that some companies basically skip the field test or consumer focus groups that find errors in engineering and / or manufacturing. Would we be so forgiving if the end product was an MRI or an aircraft engine? If the resulting error created false readings or dangerous conditions would we not be more rigorous in our efforts to provide the best product available? I know salt shakers are cheap but it seems solutions are available at the manufacturing level.
I think we may be too used to having every cheap thing be perfect. But it is good to read this article to make sure we look at these lids, which every house uses by the hundreds, and make sure ours are "perfect." Now I can make them perfect. Thanks for the tip!
The worse case for me is when it was either specified too large, or the mold was too large, or the plastic shrunk and the lid doesn't tighten but spins. I don't think I ever had one too small, however.
Here in Hawai'i, a non hermetically sealed container of salt becomes a damp container of salt water in a few days. I've tried various sealed containers, ( snap lids with o rings, etc... ) but keeping the salt in the refrigerator works fine. Keeping lidded salt containers on the table is just a fantasy.
For a real laugh, check out the Trudeau syrup dispenser. My business partner purchased this lidded pitcher with eight separate, dishwasher friendly plastic parts, including a threaded base assembly with o-ring. It never quite goes together well enough to not leak and never quite re-assembles well enough to be useful. After cleaning the refrigerator shelf a few times, I threw it out and use a simple, leakproof pitcher whose design hasn't changed much in the past 3000 years. I'm sure someone got a nice design award but they should be made to use it a few times.
Low-sodium foods are higher in calories to balance the removal of salt so consumers will experience the prepared food as tasting equally yummy. The levels of salt in prepared foods are quite high, or at least used to be, so there's a lot of "yummy" to make up for.
The problem COULD have been solved very early in the design/build process IF the tool designers specified a D-M-E RUNNERLESS moldbase w/ proven cavity probes!
Larry M; It makes sense that the rice would eventually need to be either replaced or 'refreshed'. The process could be to completely empty the salt shaker and refill it with a fresh salt / rice mixture. Then the 'stale' salt / rice mixture could either be discarded or baked to refresh the rice. It could become very complicated for something as cheap as salt.
It is certainly true that a hot wire would be the best method for cleaning off mold flash in a production environment, in fact it could probably be an automated process. But I very seldom have a hot wire in my pocket, in fact, I carefully avoid having hot wires in my pocket. But a good sharp pocket knife is useful in many situations, and is a very handy tool. Of course, there are indeed a lot of folks who should never handle any tool sharper than a tennis ball. So it would indeed not be the best tool for everybody.
GlennA wrote: "So eventually, the salt shakers were full of rice, with a few grains of salt in between. Apparently, no one realised that only the salt needed to be replaced."
Nope, Glenn, that's not right. The rice absorbs only a finite amount of water and needs to be replaced periodically (or baked in an oven at, say, 180, for several minutes to drive off the water). The error was not in refilling the shakers with salt/rice mixture, but in failing to pour out the old rice first.
William K. wrote "It should not take more than a few seconds with a sharp knife to trim the runner remains so that they never catch in the threads,..."
Actually it's much more common in production to use a hot wire. The heated wire segment is stationary on the bench and the operator just passes the objects to be trimmed across it. This is safer than a knife for at least two reasons:
The wire is stationary. You don't have two hands working against one another with potential to slip.
The wire can have guards wide enough to pass the object to be trimmed but narrow enough to block fingers.
Now there's a bloody story, Chuck. I was given a winter coat as a gift. It was too big. I took it back with the receipt and they wouldn't take it back because it had picked up some dog hair from my back seat. I took it outside, brushed it off and took it to another clerk who accepted it.
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