Tired of trying to fit bulky metal pots into a backpack or tiny RV cupboard? Inventor Cory Santiago may have come up with the perfect solution. His Bear Bowl folds flat and is small enough to fit in a pocket.
“I’m a survivalist… and a gear nut,” he tells The Buzz. “The one thing that was missing from my kit was a cook pot.” So Cory set off to invent one.
“I wanted something small, and something that could be used more than once,” he says. “I needed to find a material that was flexible, fire resistant and food grade.”
Cory found the material that is used in food processing plants, a non-stick coated fiberglass used for conveyor belts that travel through ovens and over rollers. “I started with something that was already FDA approved for other applications, so that was a huge time saver,” he noted.
He started playing with different designs, aiming for something that was lightweight and would fold flat and small. The final Bear Bowl design reminds some people of a Chinese to-go box, which unfolds to form a plate to eat on. “But a to-go box doesn’t fold up flat,” Cory says, “so I kept working on designs.”
The prototype Bear Bowl snaps together to form a cook pot, folds up into a wallet-sized packet and weighs less than a cell phone. The addition of an aluminum bottom plate took the pot from disposable to reusable. The pot opens flat and can be wiped clean in seconds. And it’s durable.
The Bear Bowl cook pot folds flat as so; perfect for using, camping and packing back up. [Photo/Bear Minimum Outdoors]
“I’ve used one Bear Bowl more than 70 times over all kinds of heat sources,” Cory says.
Billing it as “the world’s first cook pot that fits in your pocket,” Santiago debuted his new product with a Kickstarter campaign that met its $1,000 goal in ten hours, raising more than $41,000 from 800+ backers. He followed up with an Indiegogo campaign that raised nearly $80,000.
Why name it the Bear Bowl? Well, Cory says, “I’m based in Washington State and up here anything with the word ‘pot’ in it tends to have another connotation.” Cory and his wife Heidi have developed the Bear Minimum brand and plan to have other camping focused products on the market soon.
The original 32-oz. Bear Bowl, now known as the Baby Bear Bowl, has been joined by the 64-oz. Mama Bear Bowl and the bucket sized Daddy Bear which holds a gallon of liquid. Cory has added an optional paracord handle to the Bear Bowls, increasing their usefulness in survival situations. The braided handles unravel to lengths that range from 12 ft. in the Baby Bear to 18 ft. in the Daddy Bear.
“You can use it to lash a shelter, or as a fishing or snare line, there are a lot of uses,” Cory says. “It increases your options for survival without adding a lot of weight.” Paracord was originally developed for use on parachutes and went into space with astronauts sent to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
Currently, Bear Bowls are available both in retail stores and online, Cory says. “We’ve filled orders from 30 countries so far.”
Cory says the Bear Bowls have met with a lot of acceptance from many different sectors of the outdoor community. “Bush pilots love them, because they’re small and light,” he says. “Search and rescue teams, especially those that are looking for missing snowmobilers, are recommending them, because you can use them to melt snow and keep your core warm.”
He has also received positive feedback from RVers, boaters and tiny house dwellers. “They work for anyone dealing with a small kitchen,” he says. “Even dorm rooms.”
Such an innovative product was bound to attract media attention, and sure enough, after his successful Kickstarter campaign, Santiago received an email from an executive producer for the TV show Shark Tank, asking if he was interested in presenting the Bear Bowl to the Sharks. At first, Cory thought it was a prank.
“I mean that show receives something like 41,000 applications a year,” he notes. “And we didn’t even fill one out. Besides we weren’t ready yet.” Several months later however, he checked it out, and found himself - and the Bear Bowl - booked on the Oct. 7, 2018 episode.
The Sharks reaction was mostly positive and the Bear Bowl received two offers. “Everyone liked the product,” Cory says. “Except Mr. Wonderful [aka Kevin O’Leary] who said his idea of camping was a mint on his pillow.”