Joe Inventor
123 Main St., Center City, NJ 00010
911-231-3410 * ji@email.com
Invention name:
THE MAGIC MARINATOR
Summary
A kitchen marinator for the home cook. It uses a rotating vacuum-sealed canister and inner tenderizing panel to marinate and tenderize food in a fraction of the regular time.
Product description
This product consists of a sealable drum-shaped canister, a simple manual vacuum pump, and a motorized rotating base. To operate, the meat is placed in the canister and then vacuum-sealed with the pump. The underlying premise is that the vacuum created in the canister causes small fissures in the meat, which allows the marinade to penetrate the meat more readily. The canister is placed upon a base unit, which rotates the drum for even distribution of the marinade. The result after several minutes in the vacuum marinator is equivalent to 24 hours of traditional marinating. In addition, a ridged panel inside the canister tenderizes the food as it spins. This invention is an adaptation of commercial vacuum marinators (costing thousands of dollars) that are used in industrial cooking settings. Besides meat, the marinator can be used with vegetables, fish, pasta, and fruit.
Current solutions
The object of marinating is to infuse flavor into meat or other ingredients. To achieve this effect at present, home cooks have several options.
- Add sauce to meat after cooking--does not achieve the same depth of flavor
- Marinade in advance--requires preplanning
- Buy pre-marinated meat--expensive, limited choice of flavors
The vacuum marinator clearly does the job better than any existing alternative.
Job identification and market appeal
This invention addresses the most significant downside to using marination as a cooking technique. Traditional marinating requires pre-planning of several hours to several days and simply does not fit with the busy lifestyles of most home cooks.
While most meals are still cooked at home, consumers are looking for quick, convenient solutions to the challenge of preparing meals. The Magic Marinator vastly speeds up prep, offers consumers greater flexibility (no extensive preplanning needed), and makes dishes taste better without the addition of heavy, unhealthy sauces. It also makes low-fat cuts--that Americans are encouraged to eat but which tend to be dry and tough--much more tender and flavorful.
In addition, The Magic Marinator is a great enhancement to grilling, one of today's most popular cooking methods. It's considered healthy, quick, and reduces clean up. And the marinator is useful for other types of preparations (roasting, macerating fruit, vegetable salads, etc.).
It should be noted that this device has the potential to attract both women and men. Grilling is often the purview of men. The Magic Marinator would appeal to their love of gadgets and be a great gift item.
Competition
My research showed one other home marinator currently on the market. However, significant design variations make it manifestly different from this concept. A key advantage of the Magic Marinator is that it tenderizes as well as marinates. Further, at several hundred dollars per unit, the competitive product is clearly presented as a high-end kitchen tool. See enclosed materials.
Commercial machines are not competition for the Magic Marinator. Their cost, size, and capacity would not appeal to home cooks.
Suggested distribution
An infomercial or home shopping channel would be an ideal place to demonstrate the product and introduce its unique advantages to consumers. Sales at retail and in catalogs would be a natural follow-up.
Intellectual property
None filed yet. Based on my research, I think a utility patent could be filed. I have a file of research on related IP.
Stage of development
One works-like prototype, which has been tested, and engineering drawings. See attached photo of my prototype.
Price
Based on very rough estimates of what each component of this device would cost, I estimate the cost of goods to be approximately $8.00 per unit.
Extensions
A line of grilling accessories or bottled marinades would be a natural extension of this product.
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NOTE FROM BIG IDEA GROUP
We welcome ideas in all stages of development. The purpose of this example is to show you what elements you might include in your idea submission. This is just a guideline; you should include what helps clearly and concisely communicate the nature and potential of your invention.
This submission is based on a product concept that we received from Shannon Varney and which was refined by Arra David. It does NOT reflect the actual material presented to us, which differed in detail and extent.
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