The thought of picnics or snacks at the park will no longer bring up dreaded images of fingers covered in crumbs and sticky goo thanks to a clever new product called the Monchi, which is a snack container that integrates a set of finger-operated silicone tongs into the lid. Genius.
It’s another cruel fact of life that some of our most delicious snack foods—Cheetos, Doritos, powdered donuts, wings, the list goes on—leave fingers covered in flavored dust and sauces that even mountains of tiny moist napkins can never get fully clean. We’ve come up with solutions to the problem before, including eating all meals from tubes like the astronauts do, or devices like the Snactiv finger-worn chopsticks that popped up earlier this year, but it’s a less than ideal solution for younger snackers who excel at filthying up their fingertips but struggle with most utensils.
The Monchi, by comparison, is easy to use for anyone who’s successfully mastered the use of finger puppets. The snack container features an integrated pair of grips that can be operated by simply sticking a pair of fingers into holes on top of the flexible silicone lid. Food items can then be picked up and consumed without the food ever touching bare fingers, and even if the grips get dirty, they end up back inside the container when the lid is replaced. The container itself even features a flexible silicone bottom half that collapses so it’s easy to reach food at the very bottom when using the grips.
If you have kids or have to wrangle a young’n in some capacity on a daily basis, you’ve probably already got your credit card at the ready. The only downside to the Monchi is that it’s currently only available through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that has already surpassed its modest funding goal of just under $9,000.
The cheapest way to preorder the Monchi is with a $24 “Early Bird” contribution to the campaign, which means you’ll not only have to wait until April of next year at the earliest to get one, but paying $24 for a single reusable container isn’t exactly cheap. You can get the Monchi at a discounted price if you preorder more than one, but it’s still a pricy solution. During an ongoing pandemic it’s also extra important to be patient when backing a crowdfunded product as ongoing supply chain and shipping issues could very well affect the delivery times for the Monchi, too. But the tantalizing promise of delightfully dirt-free digits could be more than worth even an extended wait.