Toaks Long Handle Spork and Spoon's Birth

At the beginning of 2004, a visionary customer from the brand called BPL in the U.S. approached me with an idea: a lightweight spoon designed for eating from dehydrated food pouches, with a weight target of under 20 grams.

More than 20 years ago, BPL foresaw that pouch meals would become a staple for outdoor adventurers. To create the ideal spoon, I tested the minimum length required to reach the bottom of a pouch without food touching the user’s hand—220mm was the sweet spot. Any longer, and it would be less convenient to carry.

Meeting the 20-gram weight limit required rethinking the traditional spoon handle. I developed a unique method of stretching and shaping 1mm-thick titanium to enhance stiffness while keeping it ultralight. This design has since been widely adopted across the industry.

Another challenge was how to efficiently scoop food from flat-bottomed pouches. Traditional rounded spoon heads weren’t ideal, so I designed a square head to scrape food from the sides and bottom with ease. To test this concept, I used a 3D printer—a technology that was once cutting-edge and is now an essential part of my design process. The results were clear: the square head significantly improved food retrieval, minimizing waste—a crucial consideration for outdoor meals.

Eight years ago, responding to customer feedback, we added small teeth to the spoon’s edge, making it easier to twirl pasta from pouches. This version quickly gained popularity as well.

Since its launch in 2004, the Toaks long-handled spoon has steadily grown in sales, driven by the rise of pouch meals and our commitment to quality. Over a million units have been sold, with imitations bringing that number to over two million.

Practical and durable, the Toaks long-handled spoon is available on our official website, at REI stores, on Amazon, and through our authorized dealers.