Koinu : Professional Flat-edged Bowls

Take advantage of a bowl that has been made for Professionals to be both durable and functionable!

We at Honma Manufacturing have been creating cookware for professionals for the past 70 years under the Koinu Brand, and are looking to release a set of cooking bowls focusing on ease of use and durability. Taking the advice of many different professional chefs, we want to create Kitchenware that all types of users can use easily and reliably!

Changing the concept of the kitchen bowl

Every household has an ordinary bowl or mesh bowl for cooking.

There has been no major innovation in their long history.

Honma, a manufacturer of professional kitchen products, has created a product that is a grade above the rest by incorporating the voices of professionals into the bowl that is found in at least one kitchen.

We have developed a bowl that is highly durable and can be used hygienically for a lifetime — and this extraordinary bowl is worth every penny.

New Sizes Available 

With this project we also wanted to create a variety of bowl sizes that matches the needs of backers in the West. Our original bowl size was the 18cm bowl, but for this project we decided to create a larger bowl, the 21cm, as well as a smaller bowl, the 15cm bowl! With these bowls, we hope that our backers can find many ways that Koinu can complement your cooking! These bowls are not available anywhere outside of this INDIEGOGO campaign at present, but we plan to go to market after this campaign has finished.

Since our founding, we have focused on creating cookware for professionals under the Koinu Brand name. This bowl was born of the many requests we have received from culinary experts, asking for bowls that incorporate ease of usability into their making.

LEFT:Mitsuru Ishidaka, Factory Manager.   

Right:Kazunari Honma, CEO, Honma Manufacturing Co. 

Most bowls have an edge that curves under. However, this type of edge makes it harder to clean the bowls, trapping waste and water under the rim. This creates unsanitary conditions, not something that you want with a bowl used for cooking.

In comparison, our Koinu bowls feature a flat edge. This makes it easier to clean, and harder for dirt and water to get stuck, which makes it far more hygienic!

The innovative flat edge makes it easier to create a spout that allows for better pouring.  Even the most viscous of liquids, such as eggs, pour with ease. The shape of the spout is much better suited for liquids than a bowl with a rimmed edge.

 

When you look inside the bowl, you can see that the surface is quite smooth and shiny. This is the product of both hand polishing and electropolishing!

Most bowls, when used to whip cream, often allow tiny particles of the stainless steel to come off, slightly discolouring the whip. Until now!

Electropolishing is applied to the surface of our bowls, to keep the particles from separating, and help prevent food discolouration from occurring.

Our bowls also feature a presswork scale on the inside of the bowl, so if you are following a recipe that only needs a rough estimation of ingredients, you can use the scale inside the bowl.

The bowl and mesh bowl have been made with a slight difference in height, meaning when placed together, there is a small space between them. This means that you can fit a finger in between the two bowls, to easily separate and transport them individually.

This also means that when separating water, it is easier to do so without any of the ingredients slipping out. We think that even normal everyday cooks can be free of this bothersome annoyance that happens with other types of bowls.

With other bowls, you might have thought, “Oh it’s stainless steel, it should be pretty tough” — then it breaks on you. Or maybe you’ve had mesh bowls split apart, or permanently warp, or even the base of the bowl may come undone. 
With our Koinu brand, you can be assured that we only let quality products out of our factory. We ensure this quality by using roughly 0.57mm thick wire — much thicker than conventional mesh bowls, which helps to strengthen the bowl. 
This strength means that even with heavy everyday use, we feel very comfortable saying that you can use it for the rest of your life. 
In order to back up this claim, we tested out the strength of the bowl. 
We were able to hold over 8.5kg of weight in the bowl, without any sign of it bending. 
Thanks to its durability, you can scrub it with a hard brush without worrying about damaging the wire.

 

We’ve also created a combination tray/lid that is both simple and functional.

Use this lid to secure the ingredients inside the bowl as you pour water out. Give it a good shake to get even more water out, and the lid still holds.

You can also use it as a tray to place ingredients that you have cut and washed.

When you want to put anything in the fridge, you can use the lid to seal the bowl and not worry about using wasteful wraps or unreliable covers.

This tray/lid is a highly functional piece of cookware, but is extremely simple in its design.

We create our mesh bowl by weaving wire together, which is far superior to just hole-punching a sheet of metal. This makes it more efficient when draining water, and smaller items like rice aren’t lost through our weaved wire.

At a glance, it might seem that these are minor improvements, But when brought together, they help to greatly improve an already good product. By helping you to cook smarter, your stress in the kitchen will also be reduced, helping you to enjoy your time cooking!

This bowl series is created at our factory in Tsubame Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture. Tsubame Sanjo is one of, if not the, largest metal processing towns in Japan.

Honma Manufacturing (Honma Seisakujo) has been around for 70 years, with our brand, (Koinu Shirushi) literally meaning Mark of the Puppy. We cater to professional kitchens at restaurants, schools, cafeterias, and food processing companies with our Kitchenware.

We work to create everything in-house, from the planning stages to the production and manufacturing of the product.

We create products from large oversized pots to teapots and bowls, giving us expertise  in a wide assortment of various-sized products.

When it comes to manufacturing, prototypes and moulds are our biggest assets.

Bowls and trays normally come from one sheet of stainless steel.

A flat-edged bowl is considered to be quite difficult to make, for one big reason. When the steel is pressed into the bowl shape, it is common for the steel to wrinkle in the mould, causing the bowl to have imperfections.

Here at Honma Manufacturing, we have succeeded in creating moulds that make the steel conform to the shape properly. This lowers the likelihood of wrinkling, and allows us to adjust and fine-tune the moulds, to help lower this likelihood even more.

Though the bowls are technically mass produced, we still check each bowl thoroughly.

We also have a final inspection, where the bowl is again checked by our manufacturing team. If they feel that the bowl is off — even slightly — we don’t allow the product to go out.

With our rigid checks and quality assurance processes, we have gained the recognition and trust of many professionals in the industry.

The Mesh Bowl was created in cooperation with another company in Tsubame Sanjo, Minex Metal Co. ltd. They are a manufacturing company that focuses on items that use the same type of mesh and wire we use.

The Mesh Bowl also starts out as a flat sheet. They cut each bowl and then mould it, one by one, from a single sheet of meshed metal.

In order to create a bowl that is extremely durable and keeps its shape, we went through a large amount of trial and error.

A sturdy but deep mesh bowl is extremely hard to create, but after a long testing period, we were able to create the final product that is found in this project.

New Logo Design

Until now, we have used English with our logo, the cute little puppy logo that has always appeared on our products. But in order to appeal to western backers, we have changed from this English design to a more Japanese design, incorporating our name in Kanji (Chinese Characters that Japanese people use to write).

You can see our new logo below:

This logo mark will be embossed onto the flat edge that makes our bowls unique. This will be incorporated onto all sizes of the mesh bowl.

SPEC

 

Schedule

 

Risks & Challenges

• The designs, colors and specifications are subject to change.
• The shipping time may be delayed depending on the order status, the supply status of the materials, and the manufacturing process. 
• Due to COVID-19, the production of the Flat edge Bowl may take longer than our manufacturing schedule.
• We ask for your understanding in this matter. COVID-19 is affecting delivery and transportation speed, so please keep in mind that the delivery of the  Flat edge Bowl  may be delayed.
• If we are successful and the project is funded, we will not be able to offer refunds.
• Any import taxes and fees will be paid for by the backer.