A Fold Up Eating Set
A product family that's stronger, lighter and 20 times smaller than any other? Here's the story.
Eating sets, whether used for camping, festivals or picnics are bulky, disposable, break easily and almost always end up on the ground or in a landfill somewhere off the coast of India. The Eating Set by Fold Project © is a flat-pack, fold-up, reusable and eco-conscious eating experience that will make you look for excuses to eat out more often.
So you’ve got a day bag that’s jammed full of gear and literally bursting at the seams? Not a problem, Fold Project’s © Eating Set will fit and you wont even notice its there.
Maybe you don’t like binning everything and like to reduce your footprint? Great! You’re like us. So we made Eating Set reusable time and time again with fully recyclable plastics, biodegradable printing inks and cardboard packaging. No more filling the bins at your next picnic or barbecue.
Coming right out of little green New Zealand, we are passionate about sustainable products and Fold Project © wants to make an entire product family based on the same eco-friendly, space saving principle. The Eating Set is our first product in what we hope will be a long line.
Future Fold Project creations will be a fold up Salad Bowl without the bulk or the weight and beautiful fold up Lidded Containers so you don’t have to wonder where those mass-manufactured clear containers end up from the local takeaway. We also are prototyping a fold up Stool to replace cheap plastic chairs that break when a 7-year-old leans back on them. Our products will last time and time again.
When we are up and running, we also want to keep a live conversation thread going on our website so we can add more products to Fold Project © based on what you guys want. Say what you like, it’s all open for discussion. This is a project. An ongoing, project for the people.
The Fold Projects aim is to take every day simple items, build them lighter, smaller, better, and to last. The Eating Set is flat pack, can be taken anywhere without taking up much room, and is dependable day after day. {foldup-all1-3}
We want create a brand. But like any other brand, we need some dough to get the journey started. We want to pay back our setup costs on Eating Set and set up the manufacturing for a small product family. We’re asking for $2,000, to get the first run of Eating Sets produced and into your hands.
Many products are expensive to make. But we don’t pay for a designer or engineer, we can take care of that with our more than capable team. We just need the capital for manufacturing setup costs. We wanted to use a manufacturing method which lives up to our standards; use as little power as possible and will give us the quality we need. With this simple manufacturing method, came very low setup costs, which is why we are able to do this with a low target.
We’re manufacturing right here in New Zealand so we can see first hand how this stuff is made, quality check each unit and make something knowing that it is done responsibly.
The company I have partnered with has manufactured products for over 40 years. The New Zealand government uses them. They are an experienced team who know what they are are doing. We are excited and lucky to be working with them.
As an Industrial Designer, bringing products to market is what I do. It’s my passion, my profession and I love it.
But how can I say something does all these things without testing it? Well that’s because we have. In fact, we’ve already tested production samples in the field and we had absolutely fantastic results. We are confident our products can do all the things listed above.
We are so confident in his brand, that each Eating Set comes with a 90 day warranty. If your Eating Set breaks, rips or tears within the first 90 days, send it back and we’ll send you a brand new one, absolutely free. No questions asked.
Space saving, flat-pack products have been done before, but not in this way. This is how our products are different:
Being that our manufacturing has already been set up right down to the packaging, you can expect your Eating Set at your front door 6 weeks after this campaign. I’m not joking, that’s almost as quick as buying one from Amazon.
Here’s what our timetable looks like:
But even with a fair bit of planning, sometimes there are some things that could go wrong and a here’s a little list:
We are already ready. But maybe you guys want this in a different colour, or gift wrapped? Use this campaign as a conversation, tell us what you want and we will do our best to provide it! But with changes can come delays, but we can cross this bridge when we get there. We CAN’T wait to hear what you have to say!
We have 3 major stages to get the Eating Sets to our first backers, but all 3 stages are susceptible to delays:
Good cutters are sought after, so there may be production delays at the time the plastics rolls on in to the cutting factory. That being said I have spent time with my cutting guy from the beginning and built a personal relationship with him. He loves the project and is very keen to get the ball rolling.
Once cut, the sets go to the branders to get the biodegradable inks put on the plastic. These dies and stamps have already been made up. But again, these guys do seriously quality stuff and have a lot of clients. They are a lovely bunch though and shouldn’t be too long. We then personally will quality check each unit and package it up for shipping.
We did a little tester and shipped an Eating Set to a random address in Helsinki, I wrote a letter attached saying "Merry belated Christmas! From your long lost cousin Dave." Helsinki is the furthest point on the globe and it took a week and a half with tracking. So unless you live in Helsinki, you’ll hopefully get yours before that.
Guys, any pledge amount brings us one step closer to our goal. Help us make Fold Project © a reality by clicking one of the ‘Back This Project’ buttons at the top of the page. Also, if you want to go the extra mile, please share this in any way you can, emailing to friends and family, sharing this link on Facebook or Twitter or follow us on social media. It all helps.
THANK YOU so much from the bottom of our hearts, having this funded will mean so much to us. We can’t wait to get cracking!
"This initiative challenges our habits as consumers to reduce our rubbish and be aware of what we take in, ends up right back out there!"
Produced by Fold Project in New Zealand.
Sold and shipped by Crowd Supply.
Fold project is a New Zealand-based company wanting to bring the world beautiful, useful, flexible flat-pack and environmentally responsible products.
