Smart Food Packaging Eliminates Pesky Peanut Butter Waste

jar with a twist

No more peanut butter on your knuckles. No more scraping the sides and bottom of the jar for the last delicious remnants. Thanks to a team of forward thinkers from North Carolina State, all of the peanut butter will get used and you’ll never again have to curse at your peanut butter-covered hand.

The North Carolina State team created The Jar with a Twist. A very clever idea, it combines the packaging and engineering of a deodorant stick and a push pop (sorry for the disturbing visual). It twists from the bottom and pushes up every scrap of the peanut-y sediment, eliminating the “stuck” peanut butter from the sides and bottoms of the jar.

revolutionary peanut butter container

The Jar with a Twist provides little, if any, environmental benefit. It requires an extra lid, which also increases manufacturing costs, causing a 30 to 40 cent increase on retail cost. But it decreases peanut butter waste and may lead to an extra peanut butter sandwich or two. The team says that the jar design could be used for other hard-to-reach jarred foods like jelly or salsa.

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See more in Industrial Design or under Technology. August, 2013.