The Amazing History of Toothpick
Who would have thought something as simple as a wooden stick was commercialized by someone who made vast wealth for it?
Toothpicks from a Shake-a-pick Dispenser
The humble toothpick, a material specifically designed to, well, pick
up food stuck between your teeth (but there are other uses to it too),
is in every restaurant, eatery, or house today. What started this
journey of this simple product and who pioneered on this business?
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| A Portrait of Forster from a Blogpost (The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin in film and biography: An impression of Victorianism ) |
But then, how could Forster make good
fortune from something that can be easily made, used once, and then
discarded? Being a marketing genius, he devised a strategy to get
customers to recognize the product.He began in small retail stores. When
he couldn't place his product in the stores, he would hire people to
ask for toothpicks in the store. The store retailers naturally rejected
their customers' requests, and then realized what a great product a
toothpick was. Forster finally penetrated into the retail stores but
that's not the end. He would still hire people to buy a box of
toothpicks and then those people returned the boxes to Forster who then
resold to the retailers, thus reinforcing the "demand" for toothpicks.
By that time, the retailers were now prepared to advertise the new
product to real, un-hired customers.
Forster did the same
strategy on restaurants which quickly rose the toothpicks' popularity,
because people who dined in wouldn't have to bring their own or wait to
be at home to get rid of the food in their teeth, or better yet, use
their own tongue.
Several years later, the toothpick became so
popular that it did not just serve its intended purpose but also as a
status symbol. Chewing toothpicks became fashionable among well-to-do
men, followed by the chewing of toothpicks by women. at that time
chewing toothpick indicated that they had just eaten in a fine dining
area.
Finally, the first machine that mass produced toothpicks
was patented by Silas Noble, and J.P. Cooley, of Massachusetts. And from
then on, one can never finish a meaty meal without a toothpick on the
table.
