Most clean-cooking products assume a kitchen that stays put. Many of the people who need them most do not: San families crossing the veld, pastoralists following rain and grazing in the Sahel and the Horn, Inuit families at hunting and fishing camps, river communities moving by canoe. They travel with what they can carry. So the kitchen has to be something they can carry too.
Key facts
- Two bags, each under 25 kg: one holds a 400 W foldable solar panel; the other holds a 2 kWh lithium battery pack about the size of a cool box, a 6 L electric pressure cooker, a small induction hob, LED lights and phone-charging cables.
- Unfolds in minutes. The panel charges the pack while the family rests, cooks or travels; a full day of sun gives two to three hot meals for 10–20 people.
- No vehicle, no trailer, no firewood, no charcoal, no smoke — and light at night, plus charged phones.
- Arctic version: battery cells rated to −30 °C in an insulated carry bag kept inside the tent or cabin; the panel works on snow glare and packs onto a sled.
How a family uses it
- Morning: unfold the panel facing the sun, plug in the pack, put the grains or beans in the pressure cooker — 40 minutes instead of three hours over a fire.
- Day: the pack charges while the family moves or works; the panel folds flat and straps to a pack, a donkey, a canoe or a sled.
- Evening: a second meal on the induction hob or pressure cooker, LED light in the shelter, phones charged for the next day.
- Several families camping together pool their kits for larger meals.
What it replaces
- Hours of firewood collection every day — usually by women and children.
- Smoke in the shelter, which is one of the biggest health risks for children in nomadic communities.
- Fires that are hard to light in rain or wind and impossible to carry.
- Dependence on the nearest settlement for charging phones or buying charcoal.
Durability and repair
Dust-proof bags, a sun shade for the battery, spare pressure-cooker seals in every kit, and a trained community operator who carries spares and replaces a faulty pack under FBE's three-year maintenance agreement. Families own the kit from day one.
Who funds it
Humanitarian agencies and food-security programmes, regional governments, and mining or agribusiness companies with nomadic host communities. Kits are quoted per unit with volume pricing for programmes of fifty kits and more, alongside our fixed and mobile kitchens so one programme can cover settled and travelling families alike.
Ask about portable kits for the communities you serve.
Talk to Frontières BayFrequently asked
Can it handle a full meal for a family every day?
Yes. A 2 kWh pack and a 400 W panel comfortably cook two to three pressure-cooker or induction meals a day for 10–20 people in most of Africa; in the Arctic winter the pack is topped up at the hamlet between trips.
How heavy is it really?
Each of the two bags is under 25 kg — comparable to the loads families already carry — and the panel bag is much lighter. Two people share the load; it also rides on a donkey, a canoe, an ATV or a sled.
Is it the same as the mobile trailer kitchen?
No. The trailer kitchen cooks for up to 120 people at a camp a vehicle can reach. The portable kit is for a family or small group travelling on foot with only their belongings.