Salt Product and Packaging Format Idea (3)
Smart Salt Shaker
- A smart salt shaker is an innovative product format that promotes creative ways to use edible salt playfully.
- The product that brought this innovative concept to market is named SMALT, which is "the world's first interactive centerpiece and smart salt dispenser designed to enhance your dining experience."
- This link is to a YouTube video that explains how the smart salt shaker works, in detail.
- Salt can be dispensed in a number of innovative ways. First, since there's an app for the product, a person (who has the app) can shake their smartphone or pinch the screen of their smartphone, which will then dispense salt. When a person does so, if the smart shaker is being held in a position to dispense salt directly onto food, that will occur, whereas if the shaker is standing upright, the salt will dispense into a removable tray at the bottom of the product, which a person can easily slide out, shake the salt onto their food, and then reinsert into the shaker.
- The second, innovative way that salt can be dispensed is through voice command. SMALT works in conjunction with Alexa, so all a person needs to say is "Alexa, dispense (specified amount) of salt" and it will do so.
- The third way that the product dispenses salt is the traditional method of holding the shaker and actually shaking it directly onto food, without any smart controls.
- This smart salt shaker does more than just dispense salt in innovative ways. It also has a speaker that's Bluetooth-enabled and offers different lighting options that shine from a ring around the top of the shaker to create the desired ambiance in a room. Furthermore, sodium intake can even be monitored through the product's app.
- The innovative, smart salt shaker product format promotes creative ways to use salt playfully by reimagining the entire of concept of what a smart speaker can do in becoming the centerpiece of a table and featuring a speaker, custom lighting, voice control, and its own app.
- Screenshots of this smart salt shaker are included on page one of this Google Doc.
Squeeze Grinder
- An innovative, salt product format that promotes creative ways to use edible salt playfully is the squeeze grinder.
- Unlike other types of salt grinders, the squeeze grinder has two handles affixed to the top of the shaker, which resemble the shape of ears. When the handles are squeezed together, the salt inside is ground and dispensed.
- The handles on the squeeze grinder are easily maneuverable, so one hand is all that's need to squeeze them together and thus grind/dispense the salt.
- The innovative, squeeze grinder, salt product format promotes creative ways to use salt playfully by providing a new, interactive, and entertaining way for people to grind salt that marks a stark departure from the routine concept of either just twisting the lid or spinning a handle to grind/dispense salt.
- Screenshots of this squeeze salt grinder are included on page two of this Google Doc.
Light Switch Shaker
- Another innovative, salt product format that promotes creative ways to use edible salt playfully is the light switch salt shaker.
- As its name implies, the light switch shaker both resembles a light switch and functions like one through its quasi on-and-off capabilities.
- The actual, functioning switch on the salt shaker has the letters "S" for salt and "P" for pepper on its two endpoints, which mirror the on and off endpoints on a traditional light switch.
- The switch on the salt shaker is fully operable and when flipped to either "S" or "P" dispenses such seasoning.
- There are two, separate compartments on the back of the shaker for filling salt and pepper.
- The innovative, light switch salt shaker product format promotes creative ways to use edible salt playfully by providing people with a very interesting way to dispense salt onto their food through combining the concepts of an everyday object (a light switch) with a common kitchen product (a salt shaker) into one product.
- Screenshots of this light switch salt shaker are included on page three of this Google Doc.
Research Strategy
We went about identifying innovative salt product formats that promote creative ways to use edible salt playfully by looking for images of unique salt shakers. We chose to look for images and not articles because our focus was on creative ways to use salt playfully. Thus, we decided that by seeing product visuals, we could get a better sense of how those product formats promote creative ways to use salt playfully. We focused on salt product format ideas instead of packaging ideas because the former appeared to more-closely apply to creative ways to use salt playfully. For images that appeared to be very innovative or creative, we then linked to the sources of those images, which were a combination of articles (such as one in Food and Wine), ecommerce sites (such as Wayfair), a company site (SMALT), and YouTube.