A bit of a squeeze.

Client: Zeal Cookware
Project: Easy clean press
Services: Consumer insights, Product strategy, Concept design, Concept development, Engineering, Manufacture liaison

British brand Zeal Cookware aims to deliver simple and functional products for modern cooks, such as its garlic press. Tailored to the user and designed to fit with our new eating habits, it’s an intelligent design that offers a range of unique features.

As with all our projects at Curventa, we start with user research. This revealed that users didn’t want anymore ‘gadgets’ in the kitchen, preferring a simple and effective design for a garlic press that offers ease of cleaning above all else. Going back to basics with the design, we created an elegant solution where the parts simply open out to expose the areas that get messy. 

Turning inside out.

Using a dual hinge and separating the hopper from the handle, the press can be turned inside out. This exposes all areas with no nooks and crannies, so once the garlic has been pressed, the user simply wipes across the flat surfaces. From there it can be directly placed in the dishwasher.     

The details. 

The press can crush four whole unpeeled garlic cloves in one go and unlike most presses on the market, it has been specifically designed to produce more allicin, the flavour molecule. To achieve this, we engineered the plunger and pressing face to work efficiently together. Integral spikes in the plunger mesh into the pressing face, maximising the garlic throughput. The pressing face features a unique hexagonal hole pattern where each hole is tapered making a 'blade' edge. This maximises pressing efficiency whilst reducing thusk wastage.

Our approach.

To help us rethink how garlic should be prepared, we started off the design process with specific research into how the flavour of garlic is produced by cutting and pressing. Following sketching and foam modelling, we created the 3D CAD data that was sent directly to the manufacturing partners. The resulting samples were assessed and tested to destruction at our studio before the final product was signed off.

Press and coverage.

The garlic press was one of Zeal's hero product launches at the 2014 Spring Fair, which was held at the NEC in Birmingham. The product helped contribute to their sales figures for the show, which was their best ever.