The company that makes the Instant Pot and Pyrex cookware is filing for bankruptcy | CBC News

The company that makes kitchen staples like CorningWare, Pyrex and the Instant Pot has entered bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. and Canada.

Illinois-based Instant Brands announced in a press release on Monday that it has “initiated a voluntary court-supervised Chapter 11 process” due to an unmanageable debt load.

Court filings suggest the company has liabilities of more than $1 billion US.

“Tightening of credit terms and higher interest rates impacted our liquidity levels and made our capital structure unsustainable,” CEO Ben Gadbois said.

Although it’s based in the U.S., the company has Canadian origins, as it is named after the Instant Pot, which was invented by former Nortel engineer Robert Wang in 2009.

In 2019, Wang’s company merged with Illinois-based Corelle Brands, the owner of Pyrex, CorningWare, SnapWare and Corelle.

Alongside the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings, Instant Brands “is commencing ancillary proceedings in Canada under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act,” the company said.

Broadly speaking, the CCAA is the Canadian equivalent of Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Companies enter both processes when they are seeking the court’s help to protect them from their creditors while they try to come up with a way to restructure the business so it can continue to operate.

More to come.