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Every Bottle Pump Should be Designed Like This

Andrew Scherer's pump holds lessons beyond the peanut butter it's meant to dispense

By Rain Noe - February 22, 2019

in Object Culture

At first it sounds silly: A peanut butter pump designed to be retrofitted to 40-ounce jars, and sporting both a stream and a ribbon nozzle. But for the peanut butter lover it seems quite effective, and its potential applications go well beyond nutty paste. All package designers who work on bottles or jars, whether they hold shampoo, soap, detergent or any viscous material, should be studying this thing.

Invented by Andrew Scherer, the pump's knockout feature (at least to me, a former bottle designer) is a plunger that fits snugly within the jar like a piston in a cylinder. This not only creates a vacuum that makes something as thick as peanut butter easier to pump, but also scrapes the sides of the jar completely clean, cutting down on product waste.

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There is still, presumably, the problem of what to do when the plunger bottoms out. Due to the behavior of plastic and the nature of blow-molding, it's impossible to mold a jar or bottle with a non-rounded interior transition from sidewalls to bottom. The plunger would always leave a layer of product on the bottom, trapped within this area. Even still, I think that'd be slightly easier to scrape at than when it's stuck to the sidewalls.

At press time, the Peanut Butter Pump had been successfully crowdfunded on IndieGogo, with $52,000 in pledges on a $20,000 goal. There are still 21 days left in the campaign.

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sq f

5 years ago

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You can set a rotating cap under the bottle, which can make the most of the bottom products. And more convenient cleaning ,

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Andy Scherer

5 years ago

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Thanks for the write-up! I'm the inventor. The sliding airlock has a design similar to a suction cup, so that the vacuum will cause the outer portion to flex downward first, to do a good "mop-up" of the bottom of the jar/bottle. Manufacturing quality will be key, and I'll do my best.

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kyle wood

5 years ago

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They forgot the most important thing! The ability to adjust the amount of volume dispensed with each cycle of the pump. :(

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- Andy Scherer
  
  kyle wood
  
  5 years ago
  
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  How do you do that? It might add too much complexity for the first production run, but I'm in the DFM process now, and if you have an example product to point to, I'd appreciate it. Until then, it's all manual. Thanks!
  
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Michael DiTullo

5 years ago

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This needs to roll out across every CPG pump! :-)

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