"These days, there just aren’t any interesting cookers coming out. The times can’t keep up with me."

One of our staff members said that, and it really fired up my designer spirit. This guy has over 100 cookers at home and is a self-proclaimed gear geek. I wanted to create something that would impress him, and that’s how this project got started.

First, we had to figure out the basics: round or square? What size? How deep? What kind of handle? Digging into these details is always the most fun and exciting part of the design process for me. Then, we started narrowing things down. Instead of working with a sewing machine, I was drilling holes, cutting aluminum sheets, and basically turning the studio into a metal workshop. After lots of discussions with the team, we settled on a square cooker. Once we decided on the concepts of "a perfect fit" and "making delicious meals with convenience store ingredients," the design process really took off, and by 2020, we had a final design.

The delay in launching was because finding the right factory and scaling up production was a real challenge. It took a lot of time to get the quality just right. Working with a factory that specializes in cookers was completely different from our usual backpack manufacturers, and then the pandemic slowed everything down even more. We ended up changing factories a few times, redoing molds each time, which only added to the delays. This project turned out to be the most time-consuming and costly one we’ve ever worked on in terms of initial investment, development costs, and labor.

During all this, solo camping became popular, the Mess tin became a trend, and then the trend started to cool off. So commercially, we’re definitely late to the party. But honestly, I’m not too worried about it because we’ve created something so useful and timeless. After starting this in 2018, we’ve finally made it to the launch. I can’t wait for all the gear geeks out there who love a good perfect fit to give it a try.

Let’s pack and go!