After completing a health inspection in 2002, Chris Farrell, foodservice director at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn., thought there was a need for a product that would prevent cross-contamination and knife cuts. Thus, his Smart Bucket was born. Farrell speaks about how he got his invention off the ground.
Chris Farrell, foodservice director at Gartner Inc. headquarters in Stamford, Conn., saw a need for a new product in 2002 after a health inspection. Drawing on his 25 years of experience in the foodservice industry, he created the SmartBucket—a bucket with an internal brush and sponge that cleans utensils without the hazards of cross-contamination and knife cuts. Here, he shares his experiences as an inventor.
“In 2002, a health inspector came to my site and told me that rags should not be in a bucket with knives and utensils. The last time he came, he said they should be. The time before that, he said they shouldn’t! It seemed that there was no clear-cut way to solve the problem—rags can cross-contaminate your utensils, but you need something to wipe them down.
That night at a Pizza Hut, I grabbed the back of a menu and drew up a ‘smart bucket’ to solve this problem. I took it to a health inspector and said, ‘What do you think?,’ and he said, ‘I don’t know if that’s it, but it’s the first thing I’ve seen headed in the right direction.’ Every few months, I’d show him a new version, and he’d make suggestions to change it.
One of the challenges of creating something like this is implementing the changes and suggestions into the production stage. Once you build something with a metal mold, it’s a big investment—my first bucket mold cost $25,000. So you have to figure out as many things as possible before you strike the iron.
I made a prototype when the health inspector said the design was good. And when he saw that, he said, ‘that’s as good as you’re going to get; I would build that one.’ And I did build it.
The SmartBucket is made of food grade plastic with a wide pour spout and comfort grip handles. There’s a center-mounted brush inside for cleaning and a side-mounted disposable sponge for drying. It comes with a pre-measured chlorinated sanitizing agent to go inside.
I presented it to executives at my company, Flik International [a division of Compass Group], and they made it part of their marketing kit for new accounts. So now, all new accounts get a SmartBucket at every station. Here at Flik, we have over 4,000 employees, and Compass Group has about 385,000. I’m hoping the other divisions follow suit. I also had a booth at NRA and a lot of other people saw it and liked it. Hopefully some of the other companies will pick it up too.
My advice for new inventors is to get a provisional patent, which is very inexpensive and gives you a year to present the idea to someone or make it yourself. (The investment on a regular patent would be about $1,500, and it lasts for about 17 years.) Don’t be discouraged. Get the provisional patent and work on your invention every day. You’d be amazed at how quickly time passes in that first year.”