A new pan from space, designed by an Oxford University rocket scientist, could topple Le Creuset’s ‘iron’ grip on the cooking market.
The new enameled cast iron skillet is made using thermodynamics, which designers say has increased cooking speeds.
The pan, produced by FireUp, has fins on the outside, inspired by heat transfer methods used in jet engines and rockets.
Inventors say the fins help distribute heat more efficiently around the pan, which would otherwise be lost on the outside, creating an ‘oven-like’ effect.
The company behind the design, FireUp, produced the new technology after receiving a £10,000 grant through the University of Oxford’s Innovation incubator programme, which gives entrepreneurs money in return for a percentage of royalties.
Professor Thomas Povey helped invent the pan, applying his research into high-efficiency cooling systems for next-generation jet engines to everyday objects that transfer heat, such as household cooking pots.
Raghav Agarwal, Founder of FireUp, said: ‘Conventional cookware only heats from the bottom – our patented fin design conducts heat across the bottom and up the sides of the FireUP Dutch oven, resulting in faster and more even heat distribution, ensuring every time energy is saved. time.’
Professor Povey added: ‘Adding fins to the pan extracts more heat from the hot plume and makes it more efficient. We worked on optimizing it for a few years and the result is this product.’
The pan, produced by FireUp, has fins on the outside, inspired by heat transfer methods used in jet engines and rockets (pictured is scientist Professor Thomas Povey)
The pan’s new fins are inspired by heat transfer methods used in jet engines and rockets.
Pictured are some of the standout pans from French cooking giant Le Creuset
FireUp is now vying for control of the cast iron market, long dominated by French giant Le Creuset.
The prestigious brand, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, is known for its colours, quality and lifetime guarantee; the pans sell for up to £600.
The brand is so popular that a recent sale at a Le Creuset warehouse in Andover, Hampshire, led to chaos, with dozens of punters flocking to the site for bargain prices – leading to the police being called in to ease traffic.
FireUp – which makes its products in France – also has a lifetime warranty. But the cookware is cheaper: a five-litre pan costs £250, while a frying pan costs £175.
However, Mr Agarwal has hit back at any suggestion that he is trying to replicate Le Creuset in his style.
“With all due respect, we don’t think we’re competing with older brands,” he told the paper Telegraph.
“For context, our innovation design is similar to how Apple disrupted Nokia and Blackberry with their iPhone touchscreen innovation.”
He added that the market appeared to have stagnated following the “lazy rebranding” of essentially “the same product”, which offers “nothing” new.
The pans were designed following a £10,000 cash injection from the University of Oxford’s Innovation Pleasure. FireUp founder Raghav Agarwal is pictured with one of the new pans
“The product is not positioned to compete with existing large legacy companies,” he continued. “We believe there hasn’t been any innovation in cookware design for almost a hundred years.”
Prof Povey said the fins help to capture and retain heat, boasting the pan’s efficiency to cook food faster.
Designers say the new pan can increase heating efficiency on a gas hob from 30 percent to 80 percent, maximizing the plume of heat the burner sends around it.
A spokesperson for Oxford University Innovation said the FireUp cookware design was an ‘example of how universities can support technologies to reach the market’.