Austin-based entrepreneur Doug Foreman pitches his product, the biēm Butter Sprayer, on Episode 4, Season 8 of Shark Tank. Doug has over 4 decades of experience in the food industry and is the founder of two successful snack chip products. He created Guiltless Gourmet in 1989, introducing the concept of baked tortilla chips and creating a new chip category that has been adopted by other major brands. In 2010 Doug created Beanitos, a bean based chip that is widely available in retail and grocery stores.
Doug successfully launched his butter spraying gadget on Kickstarter, raising over $235,000 from 1714 backers and getting the attention of Wired, Mashable, Gizmodo and Buzzfeed. All this success piqued the interest of the Shark Tank casting directors and they invited Doug to audition for the show. It’s not uncommon for Shark Tank to directly invite people to be on the show, and they still have to go through the somewhat rigorous casting audition. Many companies that are invited never get a chance to actually make their pitch to the Sharks.
The biēm Butter Sprayer uses hot air to turn cold or room temperature butter into a liquid spray in just a few seconds. The device doesn’t melt the whole stick, only the amount of butter you need. The spray is cool to the touch and internally heated to a low 95 degrees, which is just enough to liquify a small amount without overheating the butter.
The device is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery and doesn’t use any propellents. You can store it loaded with butter in the fridge or on the counter. Cleaning it is quick and easy with a rinse under hot water and a drop of soap.
The device is smart and couldn’t be easier to use. The sprayer utilizes an accelerometer to determine when you’re holding it and when it’s sitting still. It turns on automatically when you pick it up and turns off when you put it down. It’s about 10 inches tall and weighs 1.5 pounds.
Aside from being a handy tool for evenly buttering popcorn, coating pans before cooking, or spreading butter on bread without tearing it up, using the biēm Butter Sprayer has some unexpected health benefits. Since the butter is applied more evenly across foods, you’ll end up needing to use less without any loss of flavor. During product testing, participants were given two pieces of toast and asked to butter one piece as they normally would. The second piece was buttered using the biēm Butter Sprayer but with only half the amount of butter. None of the participants could tell the difference in taste but one piece of toast had half the calories.
