Come on, Heinz, catch up! Enterprising students create ketchup bottle that pours like milk (and it only took them two months)

Come on, Heinz, catch up! Enterprising students create ketchup bottle that pours like milk (and it only took them two months)

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 03:56 EST, 23 May 2012 | UPDATED: 07:23 EST, 23 May 2012

Any ketchup fan will tell you: Getting that last dollop of the red stuff out of the bottle is a headache - and it normally just ends up in the bin.

But now, a radical new bottle design could spell the end of that problem forever.

The MIT university team came up with LiquiGlide, a 'super-slippery' coating which makes the insides of the bottle so frictionless that the sludgy goo inside just slides out like water.

The results are astonishing - and any burger and chips fan out there should prepare to be amazed.

The old way...

The new way...

MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith and his team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group spent two months devising a solution.

HOW TO GET THE LAST DROP

So while we wait for the MIT team's product to come to market, how can you get that last bit of ketchup?

There are many t ried and true methods - all of which involves some vigorous shaking, spinning or twisting, with swearing optional.

There's the windmill approach: Swing your arm around in a semi-circle and let the centrifugal forces help you out.

Or, most common, is the 'tap-tap-tap' approach, where you hit the end of the bottle and wait for the ketchup to fall - but this normally either takes a while - or ends up covering your food with way too much sauce.

Heinz recommends this tip: 'To release ketchup faster from the glass bottle, apply a firm tap to the sweet spot on the neck of the bottle - the '57'.

'Very few people know this secret. Now you’re in-the-know.'

When the bottle is completely full, a vacuum keeps the sauce intact - so use a knife to get the first bit out, and it will get easier after that.

And store your bottle upside-down - at least that way the slow-moving sauce has less far to tr avel.

Burger fan Smith said: 'We were really interested in - and still are - using this coating for anti-icing, or for preventing clogs that form in oil and gas lines, or for non-wetting applications like, say, on windshields.

'Somehow this sparked the idea of putting it in food bottles - it could be great just for its slippery properties.

'Plus, most of these other applications have a much longer time to market - we realised we could make this coating for bottles that is pretty much ready. I mean, it is ready, as you can see.

'We had a limited amount of materials to pick from - I can’t say what they are, but we’ve patented the hell out of it.'

Naturally, the team had to research their market before getting to work.

Smith, who is is pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering and a minor in entrepreneurship, and already holds nine patents, told the FastCo website: 'It was never really a personal pain point for me, but I do hate struggling to get sauce out of the bottles.

'I didn’t know about the tapping of the '57' until I started loo king into this. It was all news to me.

'We have all types of sauces, jellies, and jams everywhere in our lab - It’s like a closet full of condiments.'

For those who cannot see the video: See how the ketchup pours like milk towards the lip of the bottle, before landing neatly on your burger or chips

The old way: Good luck getting that last piece out...

So why did the team pick sauces for their award-winning product?

Dave said: 'It’s funny: Everyone is always like, "Why bottles? What’s the big deal?"

'But then you tell them the market for bottles - just the sauces alone is a $17billion market.

'I get my burger and proceed to add all the necessary condiments: lettuce, tomatoes, onions…but oh no!

'The ketchup bottle is running low! I violently shake and slam on the bottle but only manage to get a small drop out (or even worse, I spray it all over my clothes!)'

 

'And if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save a bout one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.'

The secret ingredient to the liquid coating is a heavily-guarded secret, but the team promise it is non-toxic and will be FDA approved.

The $100,000 winner of MIT's contest was perhaps a bit less jaw-dropping, but hopefully just as useful.

The product, called CloudTop, was created by 22-year-old undergraduate Brett van Zuiden, and aims to remove the 'Upload' button from the web, by linking all those different services - such as Facebook, Google Drive, DropBox, and Flickr - together.

For example, you could drag and drop a picture file between all the different photo services without needing to re-upload and re-tag on each occasion.

Team LiquiGlide was bestowed the Reader's Choice at MIT's Entrepreneurship Contest, winning a $2,000 prize - but their product is sure to reap them much more money in the future

Not a fan of ketchup? Mayonnaise lovers can also enjoy the magical properties of LiquiGlide

Alternatively..

Here's a slightly more convoluted way to get ketchup on your food...

• Father, 56, fighting for life after being stabbed trying to...
• Is Batman gay? Major DC Comics character to come out of the...
• Rearly, girls! How unedifying that our brightest and most...
• Missing girl 'buried in murdered mobster's tomb was...
• Enough to make your head swim: World's largest pool which...
• Woman 'stabbed daughter, 23, and baby granddaughter' in...
• If the wind changes, you'll stay like that! The hilarious...
• Gang of six 'tied up roommate, stapled his lips and cut him...
• Grieving pit bull stays with dead mate for 14 HOURS... and...
• Pictured: The moment airline passengers wrestled crazed...
• Body of missing Harvard Business School student whose wife...
• Brains as well as beauty: Meet the honours graduate who's...

Share this article: