tight spots

Desperate Gelato Lovers Forced to MacGyver Open Too Tight Talenti Lids

Voilà. Photo: Vernon R. Chittum/Twitter

Starting late last summer, Talenti’s popular gelatos and sorbettos were hit by an unfortunate manufacturing glitch — some of the $8 pints were shipping with the distinctive brown lids screwed on, via machine, too tightly. People soon discovered that actually eating some Tahitian Vanilla Bean or Roman Raspberry would also require MacGyver-like levels of ingenuity.

Today’s Wall Street Journal surveyed the wreckage and lists some of the sharp objects and toolshed implements that customers have resorted to after “hours” of struggles: scissors, screwdrivers, butter knives, bigger chef’s knives, hammers, hacksaws, needle-nosed pliers, Channellock pliers. They’re Googling “How to remove Talenti lid,” and there’s even an “I can’t open my jar of Talenti gelato” Reddit thread that’s accumulated 189 comments. One reports, “The inside of my ring finger is actually bleeding a little.”

Angry and unsure of what else to do, many gelato fans have just tweeted pictures directly at Talenti, just wanting to know what the hell happened.

A Talenti spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal that they did have “an over-zealous lid-tightening machine,” but swears that it’s “been fully fixed.” However, people have been complaining about this for at least eight months. The company maintains, as its new pints hit shelves, that “fewer and fewer” should cause trouble. Until then, power through — or buy some Häagen-Dazs.

Plague of Too Tight Talenti Lids Driving Gelato Lovers Mad