Rochester Hills-based Little Griddle Innovations, known for its outdoor cookware, is expanding with the launch of griddles and skillets that can be used both outdoors and on indoor cooking surfaces.
“Over time, a lot of our customers have asked us if they can put our products on their indoor stove,” says Jon Stein, president of Little Griddle. “The products that we primarily make are stainless steel and they’re made for very even outdoor heat. You can’t put them on an indoor stove because the burners are very intense and it creates hot spots.”
Stein says he spent two years researching and developing a product that could work both indoors and outdoors. The company came up with a cast aluminum griddle that’s coated with a high-heat, nonstick silicone with ceramic material.
“Silicone nonstick with ceramic is a pretty ideal nonstick material for cookware, because it is approved for food-contact and it doesn’t contain PTFE like traditional nonstick products (the best known brand name of PTFE-based formulas is Teflon),” Stein says. “Those weren’t coatings we were comfortable using, and a lot of consumers are no longer comfortable using them. At the same time, we needed a quality product that had to hold up to the heat.”
He says the skillets and griddles can handle heat up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Products available include a backwall griddle, a 12-inch skillet, and a double-burner griddle. Color options include gray, red, blue, orange, and indigo.
Little Griddle has launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the word out about the new products. One pan costs about $50 and up through the crowd-funding site. Little Griddle has retail partners including Sam’s Club, Williams Sonoma, and Amazon for its outdoor cookware, and hopes to sell the indoor/outdoor products through the retailers soon.
Stein says the company has about 20 products similar to the cookware currently being launched, with plans to be a full-line indoor/outdoor cookware manufacturer.
“We’ve been in the backyard for 15 years,” Stein says. “Now we really want to get into the kitchen.”
