The gift guaranteed to last a lifetime

Mother lands on cookware concept that can span generations.

She wasn’t really expecting to come up with a cast-iron idea for a new company – but mother-of-two and award-winning designer Kate Slavin did precisely that with her new cookware concept.

The timing also could not have been better. Her company, Ironclad Co, launched in New Zealand in February 2020 – and you could say the whole new concept of cast iron pans and cookware panned out very well.

Slavin, a mother of two small boys, wasn’t really thinking of starting another company. Her Cottonwood Studios graphic design business was doing well – opened after she worked at top advertising agencies in New York, London and New Zealand. She is a busy woman – also an artist (a painter), and a mum who home schooled her two young boys through lockdown.

She had a broad idea of wanting to create a product that not only lasted, but also helped the planet to last. Coincidently, her husband Levi had a cast iron skillet handed down from his grandmother. Slavin realised this could tick all the boxes: a familycentric product that would benefit the planet, was longlasting, and great for cooking.

“We had one of those ‘what about this’ moments because I was using that cast iron skillet Levi had handed down to him. We knew it would be cool to build a brand around,” she says. “We got so excited about the potential of telling the story of how cast iron pans last forever and get handed down through the family.”

Hand poured and hand finished in an Avondale foundry, Ironclad pans hark back to an age where kitchenware was made to last.

“These pans can last a lifetime, they are sustainable, and New Zealand made,” says Slavin, “and are made to be passed down from generation to generation.” She doesn’t muck about when it comes to quality – Ironclad cookware is guaranteed for 100 years or three generations, and she takes the pledge very seriously.

In 2019, she started research and development around the project. She realised the cast iron pans on New Zealand shop shelves had many drawbacks. They were heavy, ungainly, and the wrong shape. They were also pre-seasoned and black. “Not the lovely silver colour that iron starts out looking like.”

They needed to be large enough to cook a main meal for a family, and deep enough for cooking a sauce or risotto. She addressed ease of use by introducing double-sided pouring lips (for both left and right handed people) and a front grip. With thin side walls, and a short handle with a hole, the clever design made them lighter than most other cast iron pans on the market.

Then came the ticklish bit – selling them, just as the pandemic started to gain momentum in New Zealand. In early 2020, as the country shut its doors against the first variant of Covid-19, the Ironclad team (entirely composed of family and close friends) was feeling nervous. “We really had no idea what would happen next,” she says.

But people in lockdown began to reassess what they valued. Topics like sustainability, family, and cooking at home rose to the top of the list. By the time New Zealand was out of lockdown, Ironclad had thousands of like-minded people behind them — including some of New Zealand’s top chefs.

Fortuitously, bringing in a film director friend Felicity MorganRhind (also a proud mother and grandmother), also paid off and helped launch the company.

In addition to her film work, Morgan-Rhind is a chef, trained by Peter Gordon. Slavin asked her to help create content for the brand, styling and photographing food cooked in Ironclad pans.

Morgan-Rhind had been flat out with other work before lockdown, but when the country shut down, she had time aplenty.

“It was ‘silver lining’ stuff,” says Slavin. “She made these amazing Thai fish balls in the pan, and cooked up some pink oyster mushrooms that she had grown, and we were able to start putting it on social media to help launch our product. It looked incredible.”

Ironclad also got a boost from the New Zealand Made Products Facebook page, which allowed people to post their products in early lockdown. “We put up a post about the pans and received 160 orders overnight,” she shares.

Since launching, Ironclad products have become so popular that the foundry has had to work hard to keep up with growing demand.

The company now has more products available. A smaller pan (The Lil’ Legacy), and a much anticipated Dutch oven (The Old Dutch) complete the cast iron cookware range , and they have partnered with other environmentally-friendly New Zealand makers to create a range of innovative kitchenware and accessories.

That includes Victory Knives - with the first commercial instance of knife handles made from Shear Edge wool fibres, 100 per cent cotton oven mitts and aprons, leather pan snugs and more. Ironclad has also just launched a curated Mother’s Day gift range, partnering with other unique Kiwi businesses in developing gifts for all budgets – including handmade ceramic coffee tumblers, rimu chopping boards and the “Food Hug” double oven mitt.

One of the real joys of Ironclad is that customers get to individualise their cast iron cookware by undertaking the first seasoning.

Sent “unfinished, silver and raw”, the pans and dutch ovens come with instructions to season before use. Ironclad provide Marlborough Sounds grapeseed oil for seasoning. Because they come raw, people can be sure there are no nasty chemicals used to treat the pans before they come in contact with food.

The slow, made-to-last ethos of Ironclad Co stands in direct contrast to the hyperconsumerism that underpins most of our buying and that, says Slavin, is what makes them a product that will become an heirloom, nurturing its users as it passes through generations.