Magic Cook is a cooking container that heats meals without electricity, gas, or fire. Entrepreneur Sharon Yu seeks an investment from the Sharks in episode 612 for her “magic” cooking container. Can she cook up a deal?
The Magic Cook Lunch Box comes with two containers that nest into one another. Place the heating pack on the bottom of the heat-resistant plastic container and pour in water to the line, nest the stainless steel container on top and seal with the locking lid. In a few seconds, the water begins to boil. The space between the outer plastic container and inner container fills with hot water and steam to heat up your noodles, vegetables, soup, eggs and more. The Magic Cook Bottle Cup heats up your favorite drink of tea or coffee.
The secret is the heating pack that provides the heat source. It’s kind of like one of those hand warmers on steroids. People can use the cooking container for a hot lunch instead of brown bagging it or for camping excursions. Magic Cook has several professional rock climbers who endorse the product, which gives it that outdoorsy “cred.”
Yu currently sells the product on Amazon. She’s only been selling Magic Cook for a short time, but it appears she’s been in the consumer products and manufacturing business since 1999. The idea for a powerless cooking container came to her when she was without power for two weeks after hurricane Sandy hit. There was no way to cook a hot meal, so she invented one!
My Take on the Magic Cook Cooking Container
I used to go camping and backpacking a lot, before my knees and back began to creak with age. We usually brought a small gas stove along to boil water and make macaroni and cheese. Unless we caught some fish, meals were pretty Spartan on our adventures. If I had a cooking container like Magic Cook in my pack, my meals on the trail would have been much more complete.
I like this concept and I think it’s a good business for the outdoorsman market. People who are into disaster preparedness will buy into this too. The beauty of the business is you have to buy refills for the heating packs, so it’s not a one-off sale. The lunch box cooking container sells for $35 and comes with one heat pack. A refill pack of 10 costs $25, so after a few camping trips, you’d need to reload and buy again. The pricing is comparable to refills for a small gas backpack stove and it’s far more neat and convenient. I think Yu has a winner.
I am solidly IN on Magic Cook.
Do Sharks Cook Up a Deal?
Guest Shark Nick Woodman is a great target for this product. He has a lot of credibility and connections in the outdoor sporting market, so he could ramp up sales and distribution on a product like Magic Cook quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make a bid on this product. I don’t think Mark or Daymond will bid, even though Daymond is a closet outdoor type who likes hunting.
Mr. Wonderful could bid if the numbers are good and the business makes sense; he’s always an active bidder when the numbers and the valuation is right, even if he doesn’t always get the deal. Lori could bid, too, if she thinks there’s a demand on QVC, but my money is on Woodman to make a deal with Ms. Yu.
Entrepreneur, auteur, raconteur. Rob Merlino is a blogger and writer who enjoys the Shark Tank TV show and Hot Dogs. A father of five who freelances in a variety of publications, Rob has a stable of websites including Shark Tank Blog, Hot Dog Stories, Rob Merlino.com and more.
In watching the episode with Magic cook, I was surprised you think that there is only 10% in the outdoor market. There are millions of hardworking people who spend their work days outdoors, construction industry, utility workers, mowing, snow removal etc. who would be plum happy to be able to make a hot meal. Their lunch breaks are only 30 minutes and they are often too dirty to go anywhere but fast food drive thru or don’t have time or transportation to leave the job site. Why not use the Magic Cook to heat up food. I would have a bigger concern with safety of the ingredients in the product.
Damon got a steal on this one…a completely unrealized market for this product:
This product has a whole different market that the white collar folks don’t even realize. There is a whole construction industry that works outside (building structures, roads, utilities, trades,… a virtual truck based labor force) that this product would sell like hotcakes to. These folks regularly bring their lunch to work with them in their car and eat in their car in order to stay on the job site and avoid spending tons of money on fast food or the occasional food truck that visits the site. On those cold days, I can think of nothing better than being able to warm up some soup or cook something in my truck to eat for lunch while I’m on a job site. Will seek this product out and use. Camping/survivalist is a legit route but, there’s a much bigger market to be tapped in the construction industry (the folks the work on a job site or work out of a service truck from site to site for a living).