He laughed heartily, recounting letters he received from frustrated customers in the past. During our phone call, I read him some of the online reviews, including one that claims the banana slicer saved a couple’s marriage. Banana Bill isn’t involved with the production of the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer, and to his knowledge, the proceeds do not support any charitable efforts. Now 74 years old, Sheffield no longer makes money from the banana slicer, its patent having expired in 1999. Thanks in part to Sheffield’s banana slicer, Pathway now serves more than 500 daily and has helped over 22,000 people. In the late 1970s, the orphanage supported about 20 disabled children. More than 60 percent of the proceeds went directly to fund the orphanage in India, now known as Pathway. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush called the invention “special.” Queen Elizabeth II’s personal chef responded, thanking Sheffield for his “great invention.” And Banana Bill’s hard work paid off: Throughout the early 1990s, he sold nearly 1 million slicers. The gregarious inventor sent prototypes to political leaders as well. He formed a partnership with Chiquita by flying to Cincinnati to convince a very skeptical VP of marketing that “a home with a banana slicer would buy more bananas than a home that didn’t have one.” (Sheffield says that the VP initially declined, responding that Chiquita’s “business is bananas, not banana slicers,” but he was soon sold on the product after he saw how much his kids loved it.) Inventions don’t sell themselves. He wrote to CEOs, owners, and managers alike, asking them to stock their shelves with his slicer. (The patent describes the banana slicer as a “tool which has a frame circumscribing an area into which a typical banana readily fits, and a plurality of spaced ribs or blades disposed transversely to the longitudinal axis of the frame and interconnecting opposite sides of the frame.”) But how would he convince every household to buy one? Sheffield purchased a book with the name and address of every grocery store in America. So, brace for some rib-tickling ride through the Q&A section.In 1989 Sheffield met with a plastics manufacturer in Hong Kong, built and tested a prototype, then secured a patent. Instead of highlighting the utter uselessness of the tool, customers came up with amusing questions that had even funnier answers. And, this can be evidently seen in the ‘Customer questions & answers’ section of the listing. While the seller claims that the tool is “the only banana slicer you will ever need,” people did not quite buy it. Safe, fun and easy to use for children to use,” the description read. “Simply press the slicer on a peeled banana and the work is done. The listing also mentions that using this banana slicer is the easiest and safest way to cut a banana. Listed on e-commerce website Amazon, the product has been described as “a quick solution to slice a banana uniformly each and every time.” But, the makers of the product named ‘Hutlzer 571 Banana Slicer’ claim that their tool will make the work even smoother. One may think that banana is the most convenient fruit to eat where you just have to peel its skin and take a bite. However, some tools are so useless that you will be compelled to question their existence. Gadgets and tools are meant to make our work easier by cutting down the efforts needed to perform a task.
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