Welcome to our newest outdoor brand. Yeti make indestructible coolers for the outdoor enthusiast. And this season we are all, most definitely, outdoor enthusiasts. Read on to find out a bit more about our new favourite camping friend.
Founded in 2006 by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, the Yeti brand is the result of a lifetime of practical and extensive, if inadvertent, R & D by the Texan siblings. They learnt entrepreneurship from their father. In 1977 Roger Seiders, a former High School teacher, keen fisherman and entrepreneur, invented FlexCoat, an epoxy coating for fishing rods, because he couldn’t find a coating on the market which met his exacting requirements. The boys accompanied him on trips to trade shows, witnessing the full process of bringing a product to market. They learnt their love of the outdoors from a childhood in idyllic sounding Driftwood (a small town outside Austin), hunting, fishing and roaming. They learnt their problem solving from their dad, whose mantra has served them well:
“Make it. If you can’t find what you want, make it”.
The brothers graduated from college (Ryan from Texas A&M University in 1996 and Roy from Texas Tech University in 2000). Ryan went into business selling high end fishing rods. Roy went into business selling high end boats. They were building up experience of the requirements and demands of the serious adventurer. And they were beginning to identify gaps in the market. In 2002 Roy began importing roto-moulded (more of which later) cool boxes for his boat clients. When Ryan sold his rod business in 2005, the brothers banded together to develop Yeti.
As Roy explains:
“We founded Yeti Coolers with a simple mission: build the cooler we’d use every day if it existed. One that was built for the serious outdoor enthusiast. One that could take the abuse we knew we’d put it through out in the field and on the water. One that simply wouldn’t break.”
Their previous experience of coolers had been of broken handles, snapped latches and dented lids. And a disappointing ability to keep the catch (or the beer) cool. The prototypes were extensively tested by humans and bears. Yeti coolers have been certified bear proof or bear resistant by the IGBC (Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, and seriously who knew there was such a thing). This means the product has withstood grizzly bear attacks for 1 hour or longer without the bear successfully getting into the cooler. This may not seem an essential requirement in SO23 and its environs but is a pretty clear demonstration of durability.
This is the sciency bit. The rotational moulding process is a high-temperature, low-pressure plastic forming process that uses heat and biaxial rotation (rotation on two axes, keep up) to produce hollow, one-piece parts. This is the same process used to create whitewater kayaks. The Yeti cooler mould is loaded with polyethylene in powder form. The mould is then placed in a large oven while it rotates on two axes at different speeds, which helps prevent powder from accumulating in one spot. The polyethylene melts and adheres evenly to the wall of the mould. Once the polyethylene is melted, the moulds are pulled out of the oven to cool. And once cool, the ice chest is then removed from the mould. The process has inherent design strengths, such as consistent wall thickness and strong outside corners that are virtually stress-free.
The Tundra and Roadie roto-moulded coolers are the core of our range. Entry level Roadie 24 is the ultimate picnic essential, slim enough to fit behind the front seat, tall enough to accomodate your bottle of chilled white and an easy carry handle. If you want to visualise capacity it can take 18 cans of beer. The Tundra 45 is next level. Large enough for food and drink for all the family. Keeps things ice cold, even on a triple digit day in central Texas. Grizzly safe. And since you ask, 28 cans of beer in this one. The Tundra 52L Haul has all the classic Yeti qualities with the added bonus of wheels for trundling your 45 cans of beer to the wild camping site. If you’re looking for water bottles and mugs, we have 10, 12 and 18oz (I know, Americans and imperial measures. 0.28, 0.35 and 0.53 litres in modern decimals).
Time to make some plans for your intrepid Summer trips.
