The trickiest part of manufacturing the stainless steel blade was stamping the blade in a way that ensured the strings of butter would fold back on the blade DESIGN MOMENTUM

Sliced bread is synonymous with innovation, but really, how wonderful is it if a chilled pat of butter can trash a piece of pumpernickel toast? Fortunately, a trio of Australian designers --

Craig Andrews, Sacha Pantschenko, and Norman Oliveria -- have come together to revamp breakfast with a new knife/grater combo that can transform a densely packed brick of butter into easily spreadable strands of creamy delight.


The trio was batting around ideas for new products over toast and tea one morning when Oliveria cracked a dish trying to carve a thin slice of butter. In the clatter of trashed ceramics, inspiration for what would come to be called the Butterup struck. "We considered several ideas, from new containers and alternative packaging to the age old approach of applying heat, none of which had much appeal," says Pantschenko. "The idea to grate butter was certainly something we considered, but to build it into a spreading blade was a light bulb moment."

The knife was designed to follow a traditional aesthetic so it would blend in with a wide variety of existing silver patterns DESIGN MOMENTUM

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Pantschenko's only concern was that the idea felt too obvious. "We thought this was such a simple solution there must have been something out there that was forgotten many years ago," he says. "All we could find were butter curlers and a few crazy contraptions, none of which had the ability to collect butter and spread it like a regular knife." After a vigorous session of Googling, it seemed that no one from Paul Revere to Williams-Sonoma had come up with as elegant a solution -- though to be fair to America's greatest silversmith, refrigerated butter is a relatively modern invention.

Thrilled by the novelty of their design and exhilarated by the possibility of Kickstarter riches, the trio of dairy aficionados headed into the workshop. Several prototypes later, the team had a working model featuring a grater, a serrated edge capable of cutting through a thick sourdough crust, and a stainless steel blade designed to slather toast with Vegemite. "We spent quite some time experimenting with various hole patterns, size, spacing and placement until we found something that worked really well to allow thin ribbons of butter to curl back onto the knife," says Pantschenko.

The designers created dozens of prototypes using laser cutters, drills, and machine tools, as well as the size and spacing of the holes before finding an optimal pattern and manufacturing process DESIGN MOMENTUM


The final challenge was finding a manufacturer that could consistently produce the somewhat delicate devices. After experimenting with laser cutting, drilling, and machining the team ultimately found a manufacturer that used a stamping technique that keeps production simple and prices low. A Kickstarter campaign soon followed and quickly exceeded its original target by over $100,000 (£60,000).

The Stupendous Splendiferous Butterup is raising funds on Kickstarter until September 2nd 2014 with prices starting at approximately $15 (£9).

This article originally appeared on Wired.com