Food industry making some SAK tools obsolete?

[cbl51]

Okay, I need to hear from our friends in the U.K. and Europe on this. Here in the U.S., it seems more and more cans and bottles are using pull tabs or twist off tops. Most of the soup cans are pull off's, and all the domestic beer is twist off.'s. But with the poor quality of American beer, I drink imported. But if the food industry eventually goes to pull off tops, what use is the can and bottle openers on a SAK going to be?

I've long since given up carrying a dedicated bottle opener, hence my almost fanatic loyalty to the Vic classic. When I sent my son off to college, after making out a very uncomfortably large check, he returned home at the end of the fist semester, and then showed me many different ways to open a beer with no real bottle opener. House key, Bic lighter, teaspoon, butter knife, and even the vic classic he had on his keychain. He used the SD tip of the nail file.

Now I read in a magazine that the wine makers of the world are looking at screw tops, because the worlds supply of good quality cork is shrinking, and the metal screw tops with plastic liners actually seals better.

So, to our SAK cousins on the other side of the big water, is the food industry in your country going to easy open cans and bottles?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[kkokkolis]

It's the same here. The easiest the access to the food and beverages, the faster and most you'll consume it seems. And then, the most you'll pay to the capitalist system to manage obesity, diabetes, hypertension, hypercholestrolaemia, alcoholism, insomnia, panic attacks, incompatibility to the fashion industry standards and so on. Foods get easier and easier to consume and shallow. Junk food with no bones and connective tissues, fruits with no seeds, precooked meals, ultra soft and fluffy sweets, easy snacks for subconscious cinema bulimic episodes. Hot and salty that require cold drinks to put off. Carbonated drinks with sugar saturation that requires something salty again to balance. Less smoking, more eating. Cannabis helps you eat more, it fits nicely, let's make it legal and ban tobacco instead (it cuts appetite among other things). Foods and drinks should be visually stunning and ready to consume instantly. I don't blame them, we buy and eat and drink all that stuff that make us soft and overweight.
Someday the only hard thing on us will be our SAK or Multitool.

[ducttapetech]

Must be an area thing. Most cans here have to be opened with a can opener. I rarely see pull type cans. Bottles on the other hand are mainly twist types. Every now and again you will see the old caps. Mainly imported beer.

live from Nate's mobile

[JAfromMn]

Most bottles I deal with are twist off and the can goods vary. Its about 50/50 if they got a pull top or regular lid.

[SAK Guy]

My SAK can opener comes out when the ring breaks off the "easy pull top"! It's happened a bunch on canned dog food....and some canned drinks in the past.

I'll never be without mine!

[Syph007]

Yes same around here.  All wine my wife buys is screw top.  Its part of why I hate the corscrew so much.  Its just a mini screw driver holder.  I with they were redesign that part of the knife.

There are lots of ways to open bottles and cans even if you have no openers too.

[Sweety-Sama]

I noticed that a lot of canned vegetables have gotten pull ups in the last couple of years. Soup mostly still got none and here you nearly have no beer in cans because it produces too much trash and costs more return.


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[Steinar]

Crown caps dominates beer bottles totally here, twist-off caps are few and far between. Also, micro and nano brews "have to" use crown caps, as they can be fitted with simpler and cheaper setups. Also, you can open a beer bottle with pretty much anything, but if you are drinking beer from a primitive operation, you don't really want to. When you pop the beer open with e.g. a lighter you have absolutely no control, the cap comes off instantaneously and if the yeast is aggressive, you are now wet. With a dedicated opener you have more control, and can let the pressure be released slowly if you notice it's necessary.

Also, stuff like lambic can come in bottles which have cork and then a crown cap to seal it.

 

[Steinar]

Now I read in a magazine that the wine makers of the world are looking at screw tops, because the worlds supply of good quality cork is shrinking, and the metal screw tops with plastic liners actually seals better.

I have also seen quite a lot of bottles with synthetic cork instead of a screw top. So, even if the market share of cork in the wine industry declines, it's not given that screw corks will take all of the remaining share.

[magentus]

All the tins I buy here in the UK need my tin opener - you can get the pull ring ones but I never buy them.

As for bottles - I have no idea- I'm teetotal . Maybe I'll look in the shops next time I go.

Boycott the new designs people!

[Aloha]

Cans are a mix here in California.  Soups are usually pull tabs while beans are can opener type.  I don't drink beverages with the type of tops that require a bottle opener.  I love my Wenger can opener for many things outside of its intended design. 

[RT1969]

As Sweety stated above, food cans are I'd say 50/50, but I also broke of some openers. Happend last week with an energy drink can, too!

My SAK can opener comes out when the ring breaks off the "easy pull top"! It's happened a bunch on canned dog food....and some canned drinks in the past.

I'll never be without mine!

So I totally agree with SAK Guy's statement.

Beer does not come in Twist-off caps in Germany. All most all bottles are with crown caps!
As to wine, a lot of synthetic 'corks' are used lately.

I feel strange about SAK without cap lifter/can opener or combitool. And I am still waiting for the Hungry&Thirsty 111mm Hunter XT  Might be a modding project somewhere in the future.

[RedRamage]

As a non-drinker (history of alcohol in my family + never got into it) I have virtually never used these tools for their intended purpose.

The corkscrew is nice for two things (besides opening wine) though: Undoing knots and as a holder for the micros screwdriver.

The Bottle open and can opener are mostly useless for me, though I do like the big screwdriver.  On my custom sak I just put on a combo tool and a watch opener tool (opposite the two blades).

[Aloha]

I like this container for tuna and when I've tried to pull the pack apart its easier to employ my Wenger.  This way I can scoop up the tuna with crackers more easily. 

[captain spaulding]

Cans are a mix here in California.  Soups are usually pull tabs while beans are can opener type.  I don't drink beverages with the type of tops that require a bottle opener.  I love my Wenger can opener for many things outside of its intended design.

Funny you mention this as I was going to say about the same thing. Soups seem to be almost always pull tabs and veggies seem to be almost always needing a can opener.

[Styerman]

Pull tabs fail , as do twist off's . Still lots of old skool cans around my hood , i drink imported beer that doesn't use twist offs . Wine bottles still have corks .

Chris

[Sneider]

I wonder for a long time: who the hell needs can opener and bottle opener on a EDC?
There are not many bottles without screw cap.
And who can open only with an opener should better stop drinking.

Can food is junk food. In the civilization I can well avoid because there are so many good, fresh food!
If I can not get good food and cans are the best option, OK. Then I need a can opener.

[bmot]

I think almost all beer here is still the non-screw caps. Not that you'd need a 'real' bottle opener for that anyway...


Besides that, I think the last time I used -any- kind of canopener is at least ten years ago... Though that might just be because I barely eat canned food...

[RT1969]

I wonder for a long time: who the hell needs can opener and bottle opener on a EDC?
There are not many bottles without screw cap.
And who can open only with an opener should better stop drinking.

Can food is junk food. In the civilization I can well avoid because there are so many good, fresh food!
If I can not get good food and cans are the best option, OK. Then I need a can opener.

I feel some contemplation over what the A in SAK stands for is in order...

[kkokkolis]

Well, I still use a knife for opening tomato sauce packs (in a kind of carton Tetrapacks).
My older Swisschamp has seen glorious days with  Georgia Green Glass bottles, corned beef and milk cans, wines and other stuff. She is a veteran of a thousand packing wars that sees my XLT snootily and smiles. I even have two scars on my hands from those cans (out of some dozens of cuts). One was the day my wife gave birth at our first child. I don't mind that scar, although there was awful bleeding then, almost 21 years ago.
Yes, cans and bottles are in the metrosexual fashion these modern times.

[ColoSwiss]

I use the can opener or bottle opener about once a year, typically at a party where someone brought something in an odd container and didn't bother to bring an opener. However changes in food packaging resulted in an earlier change in SAK design. At one time the phillips screwdriver on Vics had a slot for opening keyed-tab cans. At one time that type of can was common, but about the only time you'll see one nowadays in the US is on imported corned beef.

[captain spaulding]

I use the can opener or bottle opener about once a year, typically at a party where someone brought something in an odd container and didn't bother to bring an opener. However changes in food packaging resulted in an earlier change in SAK design. At one time the phillips screwdriver on Vics had a slot for opening keyed-tab cans. At one time that type of can was common, but about the only time you'll see one nowadays in the US is on imported corned beef.

Very good point. I had not thought about that. 

[Caranthanus]

Boycott the new designs people!

1+


 

[enki_ck]

Honestly, I use the opener layers on SAKs for food related stuff the least.

The bottle opener gets most use for the job it was originally designed for (The bottle opener part came later, remember? ), as a flat head screwdriver and prybar. The Vic can opener gets used as a phillips screwdriver and the Wenger can opener as a scraper, awl, clamshell packaging opener, metal/wood scribe, ... (I prefer the Wenger one )

[twiliter]

I use the bottle opener regularly, most of the regional microbrews have no twist off's, but occasionally I use the opener on a twist top mostly out of reflex. Some of the newer cork solutions still require a corkscrew of some kind, I have opened some California wines with this synthetic cork. But mostly I like to have the openers on a multi as incidental, I do have better can openers, corkscrews, and caplifters available, but none that I like better or can get to faster!

"Good people drink good beer" - Hunter S. Thompson 

[Caranthanus]

The SAK screwdriver is The Best (prybar) jar-opener out there,
don't even remember the time when we used something else ... 
Lid gets off smoothly from the pressure, of course with no damage on glass or lid itself, which is in fact reusable.
 

Ranger freed Tomato Paste ... 

[SAK Guy]

Boycott the new designs people!

1+

 

LOL...Yeah, I like them with the tools they have....gotten me out of a jam more than a few times (even the corkscrew)!

[Caranthanus]

Boycott the new designs people!

1+

 

LOL...Yeah, I like them with the tools they have....gotten me out of a jam more than a few times (even the corkscrew)!

[Lynn LeFey]

Most of the canned food I get require a can opener, but that's mostly because I get everything at Aldi, and I think ALL of their canned goods (or very nearly all) require a can opener. I think it's way cheaper using can-opener type cans, and Aldi is all about keeping cost down.

I'd say easily 90% of the beers I drink require a bottle opener. I drink almost no domestic big-batch beer. We get small 'craft' stuff, or microbrew usually. I did have a few nice Rolling Rocks the other day, though (one of my favorite beers with grilled burgers).

When I go to my friends' house, they present me my beer unopened now. It's almost a joke, to see which tool I produce to open the beer with.

I don't know which is a better set-up between the vic combo can opener/small flathead/phillips, and combo large flathead/caplifter OR something like the Leatherman or Wenger combo cap lifter/can opener.

So... really... I can't see a single good reason NOT to include a cap lifter on a flathead driver on SAKs. It doesn't really compromise the flathead in any way, so why not?

For as much as I need a philips, I also don't have a problem combining it with a small flathead/can opener.

OR, the Wenger/Leatherman style, functioning as either kind of opener, AND being a good, general pokey/scrapey tool.

While opening a cap is pretty simple, I've tried improvised can opening before, and it SUCKS. And if done with a blade, adds real danger. Not cool.

Corkscrews... I don't need them. I honestly don't think I've EVER been in need of a corkscrew outside of my kitchen, or the kitchen of someone else who had one on hand. if anyone cares what I think ought to go in its place... a place to store a needle and thread. And maybe a redesigned micro screwdriver (although even that I don't find all that useful, since you can use the tweezers to tighten eyeglass screws).

[Live]

I'd say a good 90% of the cans I see here are pull off, with only some beer and soft drinks having the twist one. The only thing I commonly see that needs a can opener are whole tomatoes cans and things like canned pineapple. That's also one of the reasons why I like the combo tool.
As for corks, we have plenty of high quality cork. Here it isn't uncommon to see whole glass bottles covered entirely in cork and decorated.
I'd say a good 95% of the wine comes with corks, but I didn't ever see anyone without a dedicated tool. Yesterday I checked in my kitchen for corkscrews: I found around 5-6 dedicated tools, most of them with a small blade and bottle opener. I definitely don't need one on my sak