Reinventing the butter knife

Somewhere on the list right behind not reinventing the wheel, there is probably an axiom about not reinventing the butter knife. It is a fairly simple implement that does what it is designed to do fairly well. That is, unless you try to spread cold butter straight from the refrigerator.

We use real butter in our home. We’d rather not consume butter-like substances comprised of vegetable oil and water. We’ll take the real thing thankyouverymuch. Along with that dedication to natural butter, though, comes frustration trying to spread cold butter on a piece of bread or toast without completely decimating the bread in the process.

That may soon change. There is a Kickstarter project called The Stupendous Splendiferous ButterUp that seeks to reinvent the concept of the butter knife with a new design that enables it to smoothly and easily spread cold butter.

This is not “technology” per se, but it is an innovative “gadget” of sorts. More importantly, it’s an innovative gadget that solves a real-world problem in a very elegant, simple way. By adding small holes along the edge of the knife, it is able to grate small threads of butter that are much easier to spread.

The Stupendous Splendiferous ButterUp set out with a goal to rasie $38,000. It has already amassed nearly seven times that amount from more than 10,000 individual contributors…and there is still more than a week left in the Kickstarter deadline.

Sign me up for about 10 or 15 of these.

What do you think of this idea? Have you seen other interesting devices, or unique solutions on Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites? Tell me about them in the comments below…