Instant Brands, the company behind Instant Pot and Pyrex glassware, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday.
“After successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, we continue to face additional global macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges that have affected our business,” said Ben Gadbois, president and CEO of Instant Brands, in a statement. “In particular, tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates impacted our liquidity levels and made our capital structure unsustainable.”
The company is seeking to receive $132.5 million in financing to fund itself throughout the bankruptcy process.
Instant Brands is the maker of many household staples, some of which such as Pyrex glassware and CorningWare (casserole dishes), for example, have been around for decades. The company’s popular Instant Pot was only introduced in 2010 but quickly garnered popularity among Gen Z and millennials looking to simplify cooking. Instant Pot’s myriad of recipe options with minimal clean-up and prep have a major online presence, with the hashtag #InstantPotRecipies garnering over 117 million views on TikTok.
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Meanwhile, Instant Brands’ legacy products have ignited a sense of nostalgia recently. Traditional kitchenware and vintage Pyrex and CorningWare dishes are selling for upwards of $2,700 on eBay.
While Pyrex and CorningWare still sell bakeware, it’s the vintage, almost kitschy patterns of floral and color that have collectors spending hundreds on the glassware.
Vintage Pyrex bowls for sale on eBay.
Unfortunately, the nostalgia-driven sales won’t help Instant Brands in the wake of bankruptcy, as kitchenware collectors are far more interested in models no longer manufactured by the company.
“I’ve had people contact me that don’t know a lot about Pyrex and ask, ‘Why are you asking so much for that when I’ve seen it somewhere else for $450?’ I say, ‘Try to find them somewhere else,'” Yvette Egan, who runs an Etsy shop that sells vintage CorningWare among other things, told Fox News.
