Say good bye to dry popcorn. A movie theatre popcorn hack is the inspiration behind the “Butter Beam.”
On a Sunday in March, Luis Hernandez of Monroe was waiting to see a movie at Pheonix Theatres when he saw a customer use a plastic straw to add butter to her popcorn.
By placing a straw in the center of the popcorn tub and aligning it with the nozzle of the butter machine dispenser, the woman added butter to more than just the top of the container.
But while the butter was making its way to the middle and bottom of the tub, it was also dripping and getting on her hands.
“I was watching her because it got my curiosity. This was my first time seeing it,” Hernandez said. “The butter wasn’t going through the straw, and she was getting it on her hands. It was dripping everywhere.”
When Hernandez, a field engineer for Philips Healthcare, said he got into the theatre, he kept thinking about the straw and quickly researched it on his phone.
“I found out other people were doing the same thing” he said. “It’s called the straw popcorn hack, and I thought there has to be an easier solution to do this.”
The 43-year-old said he started thinking of ways to replace the straw.
“By the end of the movie, I had a prototype drawn out,” he said. “I went home and worked on it all night and all day the next day. By the end of that day, I had applied for a patent for it.”
He calls the design the “Butter Beam” and has two protypes.
Patent pending, the design resembles a cylinder with a series of holes.
The dream for Hernandez is to have his creation used in any place that sells popcorn. He is thinking of places like theatres, amusement parks, ball parks, concert venues and stadiums.
He said the business plan is to sell the product as an option for the customer buying popcorn.
“The consumer can take it to the butter dispenser and put it right where the butter dispenses instead of using a straw,” he said. “When you push on the button, the butter goes through it. There are about 50 holes that go all around the tube with inner tubes that distribute the liquid evenly instead of it pooling at the bottom. It reminds me of the thorns on a rose.”
Hernandez is working with a manufacturing company and currently marketing the product by making cold calls to businesses and setting up meetings.
“At Butter Beam, our mission is to revolutionize the way the world experiences its favorite snack,” he added. “That’s why I created the Butter Beam. It is a patent-pending distribution tool designed to solve the ‘dry popcorn’ dilemma. It allows for precise, even distribution of butter throughout the entire container from the very first kernel at the top to the last one at the bottom.”
More information about Hernandez and his products can be found on his website.
— Contact reporter Lisa Vidaurri-Bowling at lvidaurribowling@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Monroe inventor’s ‘Butter Beam’ solves the dry popcorn dilemma
Reporting by Lisa Vidaurri Bowling, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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