Instant Pot burnout: Parent company files for bankruptcy
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Photo Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Deb Lindsey for the Washington Post via Getty Images
The Instant Pot — a must-have hot gift of recent years — is in danger of losing steam after its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week.
Why it matters: The kitchen gadget developed a deeply devoted cult following. Amazon called the product a "Prime Day favorite," and it has repeatedly been a holiday bestseller.
Driving the news: Consumers struggling with inflation have soured on the product. Instant Brands said "global macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges" have affected the business.
- The company also makes well-known kitchen brands Pyrex, Corelle, Snapware, Corningware, Visions and Chicago Cutlery.
- Instant Brands was founded in 2009 and bought by private-equity firm Cornell Capital LLC in 2019, who combined it with Corelle Brands.
By the numbers: Electronic multicooker sales reached $758 million in 2020 but plunged 50% by last year to $344 million, AP reported citing NPD Group data.
Zoom in: The bankruptcy announcement comes days after S&P Global downgraded the company's rating because of lower consumer spending on discretionary categories.
- "Net sales decreased 21.9% in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, relative to the same period last year," S&P analysts wrote, noting it was the seventh consecutive quarter of “year-over-year sales contraction.”
- Bankruptcy documents show the company has $500 million in both assets and liabilities.
What they're saying: "Tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates impacted our liquidity levels and made our capital structure unsustainable," Instant Brands president and CEO Ben Gadbois said in a statement.
- "We believe that the Instant Pot product is going to be around for a long, long, long time, and we still sell a lot of volume," Gadbois told the Wall Street Journal in March. "But no product stays at a phenom level forever."
Flashback: Instant Pot has had a cult following for many years, and a 2017 New York Times article called it the "kitchen gadget that spawned a religion."
- It has repeatedly been a holiday bestseller on Amazon and other retailers.
- For Prime Day 2018, Amazon members purchased more than 300,000 Instant Pot 6-quart 7-in-1 multiuse cookers.
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