Who'da thunk it?

After all these years, we like to think we can tell at a glance what products are going to be big hits. Which ones will get us a lot of new traffic. Which ones will get shared and passed around. Which ones will get things buzzing in the forum. Which ones will keep selling and selling.

If you’d asked us where this FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer would rank on any of these measures, we never would have said top 10. Probably not top 50. Maybe not even top 100.

Shows how much we know.

People love the FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer. Some of them already know they want a vacuum sealer. They’re into food preservation. Or sous-vide cooking. Or quick marination. Or preparing for disaster. Or packing ultra-light by vacuum-compressing their clothes. We don’t have to “sell” the FoodSaver to these folks at all. When they see it at this price, they jump on it. And they bring along a few of their friends.

Other people have never considered buying a vacuum sealer. But then they find out all the things you can do with it. They think about how hunting season is coming up. Or how last year half of their Thanksgiving leftovers went bad before they could be eaten. Or how easy it would be to make a huge pot of chili or stew and stockpile a freezer full of boil-in-bag meals. Or how it would have come in handy to have a vacuum-sealed change of dry clothes on that float trip where the canoe flipped over. The thought of owning a vacuum sealer never crossed their minds before. Now that they can snag a good one at this amazing price, why the hell not?

As you fall deeper and deeper into the vacuum-sealer rabbit hole with lists like this one or this one or this one or this one or this one, the question changes from “what can you do with a vacuum sealer?” to “what can’t you do with a vacuum sealer?”

And we, the supposed product experts, didn’t see any of that. Nobody is more surprised by this left-field breakout star than we are. Totally caught us off-guard. A few more like this FoodSaver and we might need a vacuum sealer to preserve our self-esteem.