Ask anyone who bought an Instant Pot during the pandemic era what happened to it, and there’s a good chance it’s shoved in a cabinet. The 2023 bankruptcy became the story people remember, reinforcing the idea that the era’s most obsessed-over kitchen gadget cooled off as fast as it took off. Instant Pot Brands tells a different story now, and the data makes it harder to dismiss than expected.
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Instant Brands, the company behind Instant Pot, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 as tightening credit and rising interest rates crushed its debt load, dragging down a portfolio that also included Pyrex, CorningWare and several other household names. The brand had spent years as one of the most talked-about kitchen gifts in the country before the debt caught up with it. The company split apart, sold off its appliance business and re-emerged under new ownership the following year with a new name, Instant Pot Brands. Coverage of that stretch stopped there, well before the more interesting part of the story actually got going.
Two years later, Instant Pot Brands is publicly stating it never lost its footing at all. In an August announcement introducing a new line of compact appliances, the company describes itself as the top-selling multicooker in the United States alongside a claim to the title of most-loved pressure cooker brand. Making that statement barely two years removed from a bankruptcy filing is bold enough to be worth checking against what else is actually happening in the category right now.
Instant Pot keeps expanding, not shrinking
Rather than a victory lap, that August announcement introduced a Mini Line of compact appliances built for smaller households and tighter kitchen counters. It includes a four-quart multi-cooker that still handles pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming and sautéing in one pot.
Launching an entirely new product line built around its core function suggests the company is still investing in the category, not managing its way out of it. This one launched at Amazon, Walmart and Target within weeks of the announcement, and the same Mini Line included its own compact air fryer and toaster oven, all released together rather than trickling out over time.
A rival just built a new multicooker
Instant Pot is not the only company still betting on the category, since SharkNinja is releasing a 12-in-1 multicooker called the MultiPot XL this September. The MultiPot XL runs two ceramic pots side by side for cooking two different dishes at once, or swaps in a single larger pot to feed up to 12 people, with functions including sauté, sous vide, stir fry and hot pot.
The product arrives alongside two other new Ninja launches this summer, a glass-basket air fryer and the company’s first-ever countertop microwave, which is the one genuinely new product category in the group. SharkNinja’s decision to invest in an all-new multicooker platform suggests it sees continued opportunity in the category, even as other manufacturers have scaled back. It would be an unusual investment if executives believed demand had permanently collapsed.
A slow cooker is still the one to beat
Here is the detail that complicates the whole winner framing: SharkNinja’s own performance claims for the MultiPot XL measure it against a specific Crock-Pot 7-Quart Oval Manual Slow Cooker, the no-frills version of the product, rather than against an Instant Pot. Whatever rivalry people assume played out between the two brands, SharkNinja’s own marketing still treats a basic slow cooker as the reliable old standard its brand-new multicooker has to beat, not the appliance it supposedly dethroned.
The real growth is happening elsewhere
The appliance actually pulling ahead in current sales data is neither of the two. Total kitchen electrics grew 4% in 2025, and air fryers, espresso makers, ice shavers or snow cone makers and stand mixers drove that growth. That same report still tracks multicookers and slow cookers as their own categories, but it doesn’t name either one among the categories actually driving the increase.
The report also found that overall home and housewares sales dipped slightly for the year even as kitchen electrics specifically climbed, which means a handful of narrow bright spots are carrying the growth rather than gains spreading evenly across the category. That’s a very different story than one appliance dethroning another. It looks more like a market where a few specific gadgets are pulling ahead while everything else in the category grows at a much quieter pace.
The next real shakeup in kitchen appliances probably won’t look like a rivalry with a clean winner and loser at all. It will look more like brands chasing incremental feature wars, such as glass baskets, hybrid microwaves and dual-zone cooking, while a handful of specific gadgets pull ahead of the pack. Meanwhile, multicookers and slow cookers appear to be growing more modestly rather than driving the category’s gains. The slow cooker will likely keep doing exactly what it has always done through it all, sitting quietly in the cabinet, reliable enough that SharkNinja’s own newest multicooker still had to be measured against one.
Mandy writes about food, home and the kind of everyday life that feels anything but ordinary. She has traveled extensively, and those experiences have shaped everything, from comforting meals to small lifestyle upgrades that make a big difference. You’ll find all her favorite recipes over at Hungry Cooks Kitchen.