Meet the modern, sustainable cooler—built to last years, not millennia. 

Nutshell is a cooler on a mission: to fit seamlessly into adventures and apartments, to replace plastic foam with natural fibers, and to connect people with the farmers and materials at the heart of their products.

No garage, no problem. Nutshell packs flat to half its width so you can store it away in the closet, under the couch, or in the trunk of your car!

Nutshell kept ice frozen for more than 48 hours in our tests, outperforming the Yeti Hopper Two, Coleman Excursion, Styrofoam, and several other coolers in identical conditions. There are many variables that affect ice retention including contents of the cooler, ratio of ice, original ice temperature, type of ice (crushed, block, cube), ambient temperature, exposure to direct sunlight, etc. Therefore, we can’t tell you exactly how long ice will last inside your Nutshell, but we can tell you it will last longer than it would have inside most plastic alternatives.

We designed Nutshell with Box Clever, the sustainable design studio behind category-defining products like Nebia showers, Caraway cookware, and Away luggage.

Carrying your cooler shouldn’t be a workout. Use the comfortable side handles or shoulder strap to take Nutshell wherever you go. 

Nutshell holds enough food and drinks to keep everyone fed and refreshed. It even fits wine bottles! Check out all the stuff you can fit in a Nutshell (including room for plenty of ice):

Nutshell’s removable, leakproof welded liner makes cleaning a breeze. Rinse it with water and mild soap and let it dry before storing. 

Pack your essentials in the two side pockets, or use the hidden D-rings as additional attachment points for your keys and more! 

Unclip the front of your Nutshell and use it as a tabletop surface. Great for picnics at the park and at the beach!

The colors are inspired by the Philippines, where tropical beaches meet warm waters and deep lagoons.

The Nutshell Ice Pack is made with recycled polyester and ships empty to minimize carbon emissions. You can easily fill it with water or a salt water mixture at home and freeze it before use. Empty the water after your trip and fold it away, or keep your ice pack full in the freezer, ready for your next adventure. Get it for 33% OFF!

Nutshell Coolers are insulated with coconut husk fiber, a waste product of the coconut industry.

The husk of a coconut is a natural marvel: it protects the water inside, keeping it cool in the heat and safe when it falls. But it’s nothing more than waste for farmers. Billions of leftover husks are burned every year, producing unhealthy smoke and releasing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

We spent years working alongside farmers and engineers in the Philippines, turning this waste into insulation for the Nutshell Cooler. 

Our natural materials offer the supernatural technical performance expected of top outdoor gear. 

Coconut husk fibers are hollow and contain tons of tiny trapped air pockets–the same exact structure that plastic foam insulation uses to reduce heat transfer (i.e. conduction). In fact, if you compare Expanded Polystyrene foam (EPS, a.k.a. Styrofoam) and coconut fiber side by side under a microscope, you’ll hardly see a difference. Yet every cooler brand, and almost every outdoor gear company, relies on polluting plastic foam insulation without thinking twice about it. Nutshell proves that there’s a better choice, and a growing Nutshell community forces the industry to take notice.

Where we can’t eliminate synthetics, we source upcycled and recycled textiles that complement our natural insulation. Nutshell’s water-repellent shell and leakproof liner are made with top-of-the-line materials.

Nutshell is water resistant thanks to a PFC-free PU coating to protect your stuff from the weather. We chose a 600D recycled fabric and coated webbing for long-term durability.

RF-welded seams eliminate stitching and provide a leakproof interior liner made of 100% recycled polyester. Our sturdy metal hook keeps everything sealed and safe inside your Nutshell.

Hidden D-rings for the shoulder strap offer additional attachment points for keys, bottle openers, and other essentials.

Use the bottom closure latch to fold your Nutshell into a neat package and store it away until your next adventure. As easy as 1,2,3!

By using leftover coconut husks that would otherwise be burned, every Nutshell Cooler prevents CO2 emissions and unhealthy smoke.

Nutshell is designed to last years, not millennia. 

Nutshell Coolers are made tough so you can enjoy them on countless adventures for years to come. 

And our design and material choices are grounded in circularity: Nutshell insulation is biodegradable and useful as mulch or plant root protection at the end of its insulating life. The coconut fiber insulation is accessible via internal pockets to separate the degradable and recycled components of your Nutshell Cooler.

We source leftover coconut husks from small-scale farmers in the Philippines. This provides them with an additional source of income for food, school fees, and community investment.

We partner with coconut fiber processors in rural communities, creating new jobs and supporting local businesses.

As a member of 1% for the Planet, Nutshell donates at least 1% of all sales to support our longtime conservation NGO partners in the Philippines. 

Nutshell was born in a fishing village in the Philippines where optimism is contagious and resourcefulness is a way of life. What began as a graduate school project to improve local fish packaging became a social enterprise that’s improving lives and inspiring change from California to Lubang Island. Today we make biodegradable packaging under the Fortuna Cools brand and sustainable consumer products like the Nutshell Cooler.

We perfected Nutshell in partnership with Box Clever, the SF-based team of designers behind some of your favorite brands. Box Clever has helped build household favorites like Nebia and Caraway. They are experts at creating delightful experiences through sustainable design.

The video production teams led by Zach Doleac at Supertramp Studios and Peter Carney at Exposure Media PH helped us bring our story to life.

Our one-of-a-kind community of designers, NGO supporters, investors, and advisors are at the heart of our human-centered design approach.

We’re building a global movement to amplify our impact.  Join us in creating a more hopeful, innovative, and sustainable world.  

Nutshell is our first consumer product but we’ve been cooling the catch and harvest of fisherfolk and farmers since 2018. Our first product was a collapsible, six foot cooler designed for the hundred thousand small-scale tuna fishermen in Southeast Asia that lack at-sea cold storage—their catch is left out in the sun until they reach the shore, at which point the quality has degraded significantly. We spent months prototyping with local fishermen and designed an affordable, durable, and expandable cooler for this overlooked market.
 

We also make a sustainable, durable, flat-packable alternative to the standard Styrofoam cooler. The Fortuna Cooler was designed alongside fish and produce suppliers in the Philippines to avoid plastic pollution and reduce packaging costs in temperature-sensitive supply chains. Learn more at fortunacools.com
 

With the release of Nutshell Coolers, now everyone can join this journey of social impact and material innovation.

Welcome to the Nutshell community, and thank you for your support! We can’t wait to deliver your new Nutshell and make your next adventure more refreshing, and more meaningful.

– Tamara and David