Burn is a cook stove manufacturer based in Kenya. They aim to develop and pilot a ‘guaranteed perfect meal’ electric pressure cooker with features for the revolution of the electric cooking solution in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Burn is developing a new and revolutionary EPC technology, that will benefit all income groups and improve health outcomes and prevent environmental degradation. An EPC can deliver 78% cost reduction for cooking traditional foods, while reducing cooking time by up to 75%. The average Kenyan household currently spends about £0.78/day on cooking fuels while an EPC can do many of the same tasks for £0.20. This makes the payback period for the technology within 4-5 months, when EPCs perform the majority of cooking tasks. Unfortunately, current EPC designs are not adapted to the current challenges of the SSA grid, such as brown outs, black outs and inconsistent voltage. Burn has identified several key technological features to accommodate for this weak and grid context. Burn will build on its current 23 home pilots and develop these ‘guaranteed perfect meal’ EPC features thereby preparing for the commercialization of a revolutionary, made in Kenya, electric cooking solution.
At the end of the project, 93% of customers reported a high-level of satisfaction for the EPC. The main reason for this was the speed of cooking which came as a suprise as the original hypothesis suggested reduced fuel cost would be a driver. The project has positioned Burn well to meet the useability, safety and payment needs of end-users and enable them to expand Burn and the access to clean cooking throughout Africa.