A better butter spread with new knife

Since butter is its own food group – separate from both milk and yogurt – it is essential that all utensils that have been developed for its use work their hardest to bring us the most splendiferous spread. Unfortunately, since the creation of the refrigerator, and subsequently, the corporate production of butter, all have been plagued with a tough butter that rips apart toast in its use. Culinary courses online may not address the woes of spreading butter, but every student understands the frustration of torn toast.

ButterUp
Thankfully, a company has set out to eliminate this issue. The Australian company DM Initiatives has developed a butter knife called ButterUp. This simple utensil looks much the same as any butter knife, but has one significant difference. On one end of the blade it features a built-in grater. Before now, butter has been consistently cut with flat knives, much like cheese. DM Initiatives claims that the old way of cutting butter resulted in large chunks being left on the toast. The grater allows the butter eater to shave small amounts of the butter off, airing and softening the butter in the process. Because of the butter’s subsequent warmth, it is easier to spread and requires much less to cover a full slice of toast.

DM Initiatives introduced the product on Kickstarter, hoping to encourage a distributor of the need for this utensil. So far the company has earned more than four times the expected fund amount. It must be true that butter consumers around the world have been looking for such a spreading solution. DM Initiatives is seriously dedicated to finding a butter-spreading solution – they had developed seven prototypes before they found the right design for the product.

Warm slice
​ButterUp is not the only high-tech butter spreading tool available on the market. Just two years ago, Warburtens, a British baker, developed a heated butter knife. This battery-powered implement warmed the metal blade to 41.8 degrees Celsius. The reason the temperature is so exact is that Warburtens found from research that this temperature is the ideal level at which butter will spread smoothly. However, the product did not continue to find success in the market. This may have been because it required a more intense manufacturing process and the purchase of AA batteries in addition to the knife.