Buyers sought as ‘smart’ cookware brand Zega falls into voluntary administration

The company behind a range of ‘smart’, bluetooth-enabled cookware has entered voluntary administration two years after it launched its first products.

Tim Heesh and Mark Everingham of TPH Advisory have been appointed as voluntary administrators of Zega Intelligent Cookware on March 18 and are now seeking urgent expressions of interest for investors or buyers for the business.

Zega produces a range of what it calls “intelligence cookware” — cooking pots that promise to contain heat, and therefore continue cooking your food, even when you remove them from the stove.

There are both analogue and digital versions of the cookware and a Zega app, with the digital version of the cooking pot also offering bluetooth connectivity.

The Australian-designed product was launched locally at the end of 2020, having crowdfunded $114,000 through Indiegogo in the same year to bring its prototype to production.

Zega had also launched its cookware in the US, and in an interview with SmartCompany in October 2021, co-founder Brendan Dunne discussed how the brand secured a retail distribution deal with Italian giant Kasanova.

In a statement provided to SmartCompany this week, the administrators said the business had sold close to 7,000 units of its cooking pots and was developing its next range of complementary products.

However, the owners were unable to secure the financial backing of an investor to keep the business going.

“The business has been placed into voluntary administration due to a lack of working capital required to support the business strategy along with a downturn in sales,” said administrator Mark Everingham in the statement.

“The owners had been attempting to secure a financial investment partner over the past few months, however time has run out and their working capital requirement became urgent.

In 2021, the Zega cookware line won the Best Retail Product Innovation category at the 2021 Finder Innovation Awards. However, in the following year, the brand was included in the 2022 Shonky Awards presented by Choice, which described its product as “a self-cooking pot that doesn’t actually cook”.

“The business represents an outstanding strategic opportunity for an investor to acquire a brand portfolio that should ultimately become a household name,” added Everingham.

The administrators are seeking expressions of interest in the business by April 5, 2024.