Jeshwanth Srinivasan
Student work · 2019

Saffi: refillable olive oil dispenser

A graduate product design studio with a bulk-foods client. We did field research in Chicago grocery and co-op aisles. Then we designed three dispensers that had to be airtight, drip-proof, refillable, and dishwasher safe.

Studio project. Not a shipped commercial product.

Contribution
Ideation, research, 3D printing, prototyping, renders
Type
Product design, design research
Tools
Rhino, Keyshot, Grasshopper, Photoshop, Illustrator
Class
Product Design Workshop, with Saffi Foods as studio client
Team
Jeshwanth, Sahana, Chris

Context and brief

Saffi Foods was a Chicago startup that sold imported organic olive oil and seasonings in bulk. It sold through co-ops and organic grocers. The brief was a refillable home container for bulk olive oil. It had to attract shoppers, work in a real kitchen, and travel between store and home.

Requirements

  • Airtight
  • Watertight
  • Drip-proof
  • Easy to pour
  • Dishwasher safe
  • Refillable
  • Fits the Saffi brand

Several of these conflict. A container that looks good on a counter rarely survives a dishwasher without dripping.

Field research

We visited grocery and home-decor stores, and stopped bulk shoppers for short interviews.

Visited: Whole Foods, SugarBeet Co-op, Dill Pickle Co-op, Fresh Thyme, Stanley’s, Eataly, Merchandise Mart.

In the aisle

  • Bulk dispensers are built to look sanitary first.
  • Open oils sit out for tasting next to the shelf.
  • Shoppers match an oil’s origin to the cuisine they plan to cook.
  • The shelf is already a sea of bottled options.
  • Nothing on the floor was designed for refilling oil at home.

From shoppers

  • Premium containers read as heavier and taller.
  • Using and cleaning it has to take almost no effort.
  • Oil lives on the counter, so the vessel has to be worth displaying.
A round bulk-oil display in a grocery store, with steel dispensing tanks above bottled oils.
A bulk oil display at a Chicago grocer. The container gets filled here, carried home, and still has to look good on a counter.

Directions and testing

We sketched and modeled eight first-round forms, then took three forward.

Eight early dispenser forms drawn on clear glass bodies. Three are outlined as the chosen directions.
Eight first-round forms. The three outlined became prototypes.

  • Angled beak

    A beak-shaped top for a controlled pour. It comes apart in two pieces for the dishwasher.

    Wood, bamboo or metal

  • Open and closed

    Lift the cap to unseal and pour. Press it down to reseal.

    Wood or bamboo

  • Fill under the spigot

    Fills straight from the store spigot. A twist cap opens a small hole for a finishing pour.

    Wood, bamboo or plastic

Testing with prototypes

A participant at a studio table points to a clear jar prototype among rows of white caps and glass bodies.
A prototype session in the studio. Feedback was mostly about signals. People reacted to what a form suggests, how big a refill feels, and whether it looks easy to clean.

  • Niel Test participant

    “How is this little jar my bulk purchase? Can I get an even bigger jar?”
    “If this is premium oil, I would not want to waste even a drop of it.”
    “A lot of these forms remind me of room fresheners.”

    Materials they reached for: cork, wood

  • John Test participant

    “Sustainability: heftiness of the material, to help it live long.”
    “Plastic means free or cheap.”

    Materials they reached for: bamboo, walnut

  • Moko Test participant

    “I don’t use a lot of olive oil.”
    “When I think of olive oil, I don’t think of a form. I just think of a color.”
    “I don’t like any buttons in the design. Those are tough to clean.”

    Materials they reached for: ceramic, silicone, glass

Niel liked twisting to widen the opening. He said see-through packaging feels premium.

Final concepts

Three final forms, compared side by side instead of pitched separately.

  • Swan concept render: a tapered dark cap with an angled spout on a clear glass body.

    Swan

    A flowing form that is easy to grip. A slider sets a low or high flow.

    Materials. Stainless steel, bamboo or white ceramic

  • Ceramic concept render: a white vase-shaped vessel with a dark knob on top that pulls up to open.

    Ceramic

    Pours in any direction. Pull up to open, push down to seal, with detents for low or high flow.

    Materials. Stainless steel, wood or white ceramic

  • Wine concept render: a green bottle-shaped vessel with a slim vertical slider on its side.

    Wine

    A slider on the side controls the pour. The shape borrows from a wine bottle.

    Materials. Stainless steel, wood or bamboo

Next steps for the client: show the concepts to shoppers, store managers, and manufacturers, and pick one. Then refine, test, engineer, price, and find a manufacturer.

What I take from it now

  1. Conflicting requirements, like looking good, surviving a dishwasher, and never dripping, have to be designed together, not as a shape.

  2. People reject a form that looks like the wrong product. Reading as a room freshener or as cheap plastic killed a design.

  3. Field visits beat desk research when a product has to work in a real aisle and on a real counter.