The Instant Pot Was Beloved. Now Its Maker Has Filed for Bankruptcy. (Published 2023) (2024)

Drop in some ground beef, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and spices. Press a button, head out for work and return hours later to a perfectly prepared chili.

For a while, the Instant Pot, an electronically controlled device that could pressure-cook and slow-cook food, was the kitchen tool everyone wanted. The product hit the market in 2010, quickly became a top seller, and spawned a legion of fans who called themselves “Potheads” and used their Instant Pots to create dozens of recipes.

Those Potheads are still around, making soups, stews and puddings. But over the past few years, the Instant Pot has failed to attract new fans, and its parent company is struggling.

Instant Brands, the maker of the Instant Pot and other household brands such as Pyrex, Snapware and CorningWare, announced on Monday that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The move, according to the company, will secure $132.5 million in funding to allow it to stay afloat and restructure rather than liquidate its business. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about its sales.

Ben Gadbois, president and chief executive of Instant Brands, said in a statement on Monday that “after successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, we continue to face additional global macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges that have affected our business.”

“In particular, tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates impacted our liquidity levels and made our capital structure unsustainable,” Mr. Gadbois said.