Cooper Hewitt says...
In 1989, Sam Farber, former CEO of the cookware manufacturer Copco, decided to establish the kitchen utensil manufacturer OXO International, inspired by his arthritic wife’s difficulty gripping a potato peeler. Farber considered many kitchen tools to be “functional disasters” and contemplated what could be done for his wife and the more than 20 million Americans with arthritis.[1] He noted that, even for the average user, “ordinary kitchen tools hurt your hands, with painful scissor loops... [and] hard skinny handles.”[2] Farber wondered: if you made comfortable tools, wouldn’t everybody use them?
[1] Corporate Design Foundation, "Getting a Grip on Kitchen Tools," @issue Journal 2, no. 1 (1996), http://www.cdf.org/issue_journal/getting_a_grip_on_kitchen_tools.html
[2] Ibid.
