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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

self-heating meals

Do We Really Need a Self-Heating Soup Can?

Here’s a question: Do we need a self-heating soup can?

Believe it or not, it’s a challenge startups have been trying to tackle for decades.

And while it may seem like an odd question, there is definitely a need for meal-heating solutions among outdoor adventurers, first responders, and military personnel on-the-go, all of whom periodically need a hot meal but don’t have immediate access to a kitchen or campfire.

The reason I’m even asking is a pitch that landed in my inbox from a company out of Germany called Canboy. The company was founded by a brother team who have been working on the idea for the past decade and are finally beginning to commercialize their invention.

The Canboy and other self-heating solutions work through what is known as an exothermic chemical reaction. You’ve probably used this technology without knowing, possibly through a portable hand-warmer or similar products. The products typically use a chemical compound called calcium oxide, released through a button push into the water inside a triple-walled container that separates the consumable from the chemical cocktail. The resulting heat generated in the surrounding cavity is enough to heat the food for consumption.

You can watch the Canboy in action below:

Of course, there are alternatives to this approach, including flameless heater packets (which use another chemical process involving magnesium). And then there are high-tech approaches like those created by Ember, which can heat food like soup.

And while the whole idea of self-heating cans seems silly, consider this undeniable truth: no one likes cold soup (and yes, I know gazpacho fans might want to have a word, but you are an exception and a little weird). And considering we live in an ever-more-uncertain world where the doomsday prepper market is becoming a sizeable industry, there might finally be a big enough market for a company like Canboy to make a go of it.

According to Freddy Arnold, whose brother Uwe invented the concept (and has a US patent), the company is gaining some traction in their home country of Germany. They’ve begun to see their Canboy containers to their local fire department, and the “THW” Technisches Hilfswerk (state organization of Germany) has requested product samples. The company is also looking for customers in the food and beverage space interested in a self-heating food containers.

Those interested, they can order from the company’s website. The products aren’t cheap – about € 9,50 a can – but hey, if you’re looking to hike Mt Everest or building that million-dollar doomsday bunker, you might be ok with spending a little for a hot soup.

The Pandemic Made Self-Heating Instant Food Hot in China

Rather than inspiring bursts of creativity in the kitchen, the pandemic and continued lockdown has actually made me lazier when it comes to making food. Maybe that’s from working more hours, or feeling a constant state of stress over the state of the world, or just a general malaise. Whatever the reason, my meals are often whittled down into whatever I can stuff into a tortilla and cook in the panini press.

So when I read about how the pandemic has caused a surge in sales of self-heating packages of food in China, my first reaction was I get it. I mean, you don’t even need to stuff a tortilla or plug in the panini maker. My second reaction was where can I get self-heating packages of food?

Self-heating meals are pretty much what you think they are. Special packaging allows water to mix with powdered chemicals like magnesium and iron to create an exothermic reaction with the resulting steam heating the meal.

As the Mintel blog (h/t to Spoon contributor Stephen Bronner for forwarding) writes, in China the pandemic made self-heating meals hot:

The pandemic has seen sales of self-heating foods in China surge. Between late January and early February 2020, when the virus caused peak infections and China went into lockdown, sales of self-heating foods experienced the second-highest growth of all categories, year over year, according to Taobao, China’s largest online retailer. Sales of self-heating rice alone grew by 257%. They have enabled consumers to enjoy fuss-free dishes/hotpots/meals while restaurants were closed.

Mintel goes on to explain that even though these self-heating foods have a higher price point, they continue to be embraced by Chinese consumers, with Mintel projecting that the market for such products will double.

This type of self-heating technology is also attractive to brands. Mintel reports that hot pot chain HaiDiLao has its own line of self-heating packaged meals that offer an attractive alternative for consumers who can’t afford to eat at the actual restaurants more often.

We’ve covered similar technology here in the states from HeatGen, which uses chemical reactions for self-heating cans being used by La Colombe for individual servings of hot coffee on-the-go. You can also find a variety of self-heating meals when shopping for emergency preparedness or camping foods.

Given that I’ll be basically camping out at home for the foreseeable future, who knows, maybe self-heating meals will be added to my own pandemic menu.