Yves Behar has spoken out about the widely ridiculed juicer he designed for Silicon Valley start-up Juicero, saying "people are very, very happy with it".
The Juicero juicer became the subject of a social media backlash in April after it transpired that a pair of hands could do the same job as the $400 machine, which squeezed juice from pre-packaged sachets.
In his first public comments on the controversy, Behar defended the product to Dezeen, saying that Juicero was a useful product.
"I have a machine to grind my coffee," he said. "I don't grind my coffee with my fists. That would be a lot of work and make a lot of mess. I don't see a difference between the two situations."
"The company is doing well, the people who have the product are actually very, very happy with it, and the reorder rate is actually very very strong." However, Behar stopped short of saying Juicero had been unfairly targeted by social-media commentators.
"Sometimes you get into negative memes, sometimes you get into positive memes," he said. "I've seen it happen in other cases in the past. When the company is delivering a product and a service of quality that people love and respect and appreciate, those negative memes go away."
"You have to have a long view of these things, and the internet tends to have a short view."

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