Forget the latest iPad - the latest invention getting everyone in a flap is this ketchup bottle.
Why? For anyone who has furiously shaken a ketchup bottle trying to get that last glob of sauce to no avail will understand – this clever, non-stick creation allows the tomato sauce to flow freely from the bottle just like milk.
Designed by Dave Smith, an engineer from the Massachusetts Institute Technlogy, his ingenious ‘LiquiGlide’ is a ‘super slippery’ coating made of nontoxic material that can be applied to most food packaging.
Once added to the inside of the ketchup bottle, it stops the thick sauce sticking to the sides, enabling it to pour as easily without any effort. The slippery coating has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“It’s kind of a structured liquid. It’s rigid like a solid, but it’s lubricated like a liquid,” Smith told FastCoExist.
“It just floats right onto the sandwich,” he added.
Next on the list for Smith’s team? "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," he adds.
They also trialed their invention on mayonnaise bottles.
But for now, we can live with the hope that the days of pounding our ketchup bottles in vain could soon be over…