Tester Information
Name: Duane
Lawrence
Email: duanesgear (at) yahoo (dot) com
Location:
Sparwood, British Columbia Canada
Gender: Male
Age: 44
years
Height:
5’9” (1.75m)
Weight:
160 lbs
(73 kg)
I have been an avid outdoor enthusiast for over 25 years. I enjoy
a variety of outdoor activities including mountaineering, day hikes, multi-day
backpacking trips, river and ocean kayaking, back-country skiing, snowshoeing,
mountain biking and rock climbing. I have climbed throughout British Columbia,
the United States and when opportunity presents itself in Europe and India. I
carry a wide variety of gear depending on the type and length of trip. I
am a search and rescue team member in the Southern Canadian Rockies and am part
of the swift water, rope rescue and avalanche technical teams and ground search
team.
Initial Review – March 7, 2017
Product Details
Manufacturer | Wildo Sweden AB | Model | Wildo Eating Essentials Campware Set | Manufactured In | Sweden | Web Site | www.wildo.se | MSRP | $27.99 | Measured Weight | 337 g (11.9 oz) | Listed Weight | 340 g (12 oz) | Set Measured Size | 22 cm (8.7 in) Diameter 7 cm (2.8 in) Depth | Color Tested | Olive/Lime | Available Colors | Olive/Lime, Orange/Tan, Lemon/Blue, Lilac/Pink | Set Specifications
Item | Volume | Weight | Size | Material | Measured Volume | Measured Weight | Measured Size | Fold-A-Cup | 2.4dl (1c) | 25g (.88oz) | 9.4x7.2x9cm (3.7x2.8x1.1in) | Thermoplastic Elastomer | 2.4 dl (1c) | 24g (.85oz) | 5.5x9.1x7.1cm | Kasa Bowl | 3.1dl (1.3c) | 36g (1.25oz) | 11.5cm (4.53in) diameter | Polypropylene | 3.5dl (1.45c) | 36g (1.3z) | 11.5x14.7x4.7cm | Kasa XL | 8.9dl (3.8c) | 80g (3oz) | 15.5cm (6in) diameter excluding handle 6cm(2in) deep | Polypropylene | 9.1dl (3.8c) | 80g (2.8oz) | 15.2x23.4x6.6cm | Camper Plate Flat | n/a | 68g (2.4oz) | 15.5x2.1cm (5.7x0.83in) | Polypropylene | 5dl (2c) | 67g (2.4oz) | 20.9x2.1cm | Camper Plate Deep | n/a | 82g (2.9oz) | 15.5x4.4cm (5.7x1.7in) | Polypropylene | 8.75dl (3.6c) | 84g (3oz) | 21x3.8cm | Wildo Spork | n/a | 8.5g (0.3oz) | 16.5x5.4/1.5cm (6.5x1.9/0.6in) | PA6 | n/a | 12g (.4oz) | 16.3x4.7x1.8cm |
Campware Set Overview
The Wildo Eating Essentials Campware sets is comprised of
seven of the Wildo Campware products including a small mug, larger open mug, large
bowl, shallow plate, deep plate and two sporks, the ever essential spoon, knife
and fork combination. The entire set came
in a mesh bag with a little carabiner.
The Fold-A-Cup is a small mug that can bend into itself reducing
its depth from 5.5 cm (2.2 in) cm to 2.7 cm (1 in). The cup
holds about 1 cup (236 ml) of liquid and has a small 2 cm (.8 in) handle. When unfolded the mug has a slightly narrower
opening than when it is folded up. The Fold-A-Mug is made of a malleable food
grade thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) that is dishwasher safe and BPA (bisphenol
A) free.
The Kasa Bowl, made of a food grade polypropylene (PP), also
BPA free and is dishwasher safe. This stiffer plastic appears to make the mug
more resilient removing most of its flexibility. All of the remainder of the products
described in this report are made of PP.
The Kasa Bowl is small enough to drink from or use as a small soup
bowl. The bowl holds about 1.3 cups (307 ml) of
water and has measuring lines on the inside of the bowl. Unfortunately it did not tell me what units
it was measuring. After a little bit of
unit manipulation I figured out that the 1, 2 and 3 represented 100 ml, 200 ml
and 300 ml (.4c, .8c and 1.3c). The bowl has a small 3.5 cm
(1.4 in) handle. The Kasa XL is a large bowl with
an 8 cm (3.2 in) handle and can hold up to 3.8 cups (899 ml) of water.
The Camper Plate and Camper Plate Deep are 22 cm (8.7 in) in diameter
with the primary difference between them being the depth. The Camper Plate Deep is 4.4 cm (1.7 in) deep while
the Camper Plate is 2.1 cm (.8 in) deep. The
Camper Plate fits nicely into the top of the Plate Deep. The Campware Set also comes with two Sporks,
also made of PP. The handle is about 10
cm (3.9 in) with the spoon, knife and fork portion of the Sport roughly 5 cm (2 in) in diameter.
General Impressions and Observations
The Campware set is a nice looking camp kit that has enough components
to allow two people to eat and drink a meal.
The Sporks, always a favorite in my mind, appear to be stiff enough to
attack most food with the spoon deep enough to actually scoop up food or
soup. The knife edge appears to be sharp
enough to cut food stuffs, and the fork tines look like they should be able to
spear whatever I am eating at the time. The
Fold-A-Cup is kind of neat. It folds
down into a very compact unit although it does seem to be a little small for my
liking. Even the Kasa Bowl, which can be
used as a cup is small for my linking. I
am anticipating having to make many cups of tea or coffee to satisfy my morning
and evening tea and coffee consumption requirement’s. The good thing about both there relatively
small size is that hot liquids won’t have time to cool off as there is not much
there to begin with. Both the bowl and
cup fit nicely in my hand but the handles are a little too small for my
liking. I anticipate just holding both
in the palm of my hands rather than using the handles. I can see the handles coming in handy if needed
to scoop up something but not for holding onto.
The
Kasa XL is a large bowl which is listed as being a
multi-use vessel that can be used a bowl, cup or as a large
scoop. It actually reminds me of a small cooking
pot, not that this would be a good idea being made of plastic.
Although I can see that I could drink from
this large bowl I cannot imagine it being very comfortable. I
foresee using this as a my primary bowl as
I can fit enough food into it all at once without having to go back to
the cook
pot for seconds and thirds if I were to use the smaller Kasa
Bowl. Both the Plate and Plate Deep look to be of a
useful size. The shallower plate appears
to be big enough to hold a small meal and stiff enough that when being
weighted
down with food it is not going to dump everything on the ground.
The Plate Deep looks even more useful with
large side walls that will hold food without letting it escape.
It should be able to hold most any type of
food without spilling off the sides. The
only thing I can see that would be a problem would be getting to the
bottom of
the plate to cut food, the sides might get in the way, but then again
that is
where the Plate would be perfect. I
almost forgot to mention that both plates have a small, matching, hole
on the ‘handle’
of the plate (a flat bit on one edge). I
am assuming that this is placed here so that the user could clip them
together
and hang them off of a pack, not exactly sure.
I also almost missed that both plates actually have a handle of
sorts. It’s a flat portion of the plate, 3 cm (1.2 in) deep,
that could be used to make handling the plate easier, will have to wait
and
see.
Over all the set appears to have everything two people would
need to enjoy a meal. Two plates, two
Sporks, two cups or two bowls and a cup depending on how I would choose to use
them. The handles are a little small, almost to a pointless state, but I will
just have to wait and see how they actually function over the course of this
test. Everything fits rather nicely together
making a relatively compact unit and the mesh bag easily fits everything. Individually each piece is fairly light but
together, weighing in at about 337 g (11.9 oz), it is a little on the heavy side for my
liking.
Test Conditions
It has been a very nice summer that has gone on forever this year with no sign
of rain anywhere in the near future. For test conditions I tried a variety
of foods over the test period that included about 18 nights of camping and
about 36 meals, breakfasts and dinners, I do not really cook anything for
lunches. At camp I tried a variety of foods including pancakes and
oatmeal for breakfast and then a variety of soups, noodles, pasta and rice
dishes for dinner. Liquids entailed tea, coffee and water for the most
part.
Observations
The Wildo series of Campware are fairly nice to use. I had multiple opportunities
to use all of the various components in this Eating Essentials Campware set and
have found that there are good and bad things about this set. First I
would say for backpacking the set is too varied. For a two person set up
there is only one of each item. This means, when we prepared soup that
one person got the big bowl and the other person the little bowl. Seeing
as there was only one cup, which was incredibly small, the other person would
need to use a bowl to drink out of. The two plates were fine, one being
deep and the other shallow, but this was not really an issue. It seemed
that this set was created for two people but the focus was on giving the user a
variety of pieces rather than making the set actually usable for two people.
I would suggest either making this a really two-person set up or leave it
as a one-person kit. As it is now it is somewhere in the middle which just
left me confused.
With respect to the individual items I think it will be easiest to go through
them one by one. First, the fold-a-cup. Although very compactable
it is about the only positive thing I can think of when reviewing this item.
It is just so small in so many ways it is not very useful. The
total volume of this cup is tiny resulting in it having to be refilled on a
continual basis. It does not hold any heat for hot beverages and the
handle is tiny. The fold-a-cup needs to be three or four times the size
for me to consider using it. And even then if it cannot keep my coffee warm in
the morning for a good amount of time then it is fairly useless. For
water and cold beverages I would be more likely to dink out of my water bottle
than get use the fold-a-cup.
The Kasa Bowl and Kasa XL are not bad to use. I actually really
like the
handles on these bowls as it makes it very easy to handle. Both
sizes are
good although when backpacking two sizes of bowls are really not
needed.
I would have easily been happy with the XL and left the smaller
Kasa Bowl
at home. The Kasa Bowel was also supposed to double as a wide
mouth cup. Although it holds enough volume to be appropriate for use as
a mug and the
handle is a nice size, the wide mouth of the cup is so large that the
heat from
any hot beverage dissipates very quickly. So, although I had
enough
coffee in my mug it went cold faster than I could drink it. On
the other
hand as a soup bowl or for anything that is better eaten from a bowl
than a
plate both the Kasa Bowl and Kasa XL were great. Hot food holds
its heat
for a much longer period of time so cooling was not an issue and the
handles
were very nice to use. The bowls were designed with the concept of
being versatile
enough to be used for measuring as well which is a great idea.
The only
issue here was that the measuring labels are very hard to read.
They are
raised lettering on the inside of the bowls of the same color material
and just
hard to see. The other problem is that the measuring lines are
listed as
1, 2 and 3. There is no designation as to what this is referring
to which
makes it fairly ineffectual. The difficulty reading the letters
would be negated if they listed in 100 ml or equivalent oz.
Either one
would have been fine as I could have converted it from one to the other
but
there is no way to convert or even guess at what 1, 2 or 3 means in
volume.
The plates, both deep and shallow, were very nice to use. Each has
a lip on the side which pushes the food away from one edge of the plate which
could them be used as a handle. This was a very nice feature of both
pates and greatly appreciated for handling. The shallow plate was very
good for foods that I needed to cut while being on my plate while the deep
plate contained a nice amount of food wile preventing spillage. There is
really nothing I did not like about the plates.
The Spork was, well a Spork. Whenever something is combined it detracts a
little from each aspect for the convenience of only needing one item.
Overall the Wildo Spork did a fairly good job of being an all-in-one
knife, fork and spoon. The spoon held a good amount of liquid and was easy to
use. The fork was a little more challenging as the tines were a little
more difficult to use when spearing food and the knife was so-so at cutting
food. My wife actually had no problem at all using the knife feature of
the Spork while I, for reasons unknown, could not use it very effectively. I
found that the knife blade was on the wrong side of the Spork for me.
Seeing my wife use it without issue leads me to believe that it was more
me than the design.
Materials & Durability
Overall the material used for the Wildo Campware appears to be pretty good
stuff. All of the components are ridged, excluding the flexible
fold-a-cup, which was appreciated when I was eating off my lap. I never
felt that I was going to lose any food from the plate or bowls. The
plates did scratch a little when I used the knife on them for cutting things up
but this was not entirely unexpected and the amount of scratching is not a
cause for concern. All of the items were very easy to clean with nothing
really sticking to them. I even tried some curry one night and it did not
stain the plastic which was nice to see. The sporks were fairly stiff
which allowed for easy use but the knife and the fork are usable but not the
best. As they not designed to be either one it limits there functionality, just
the reality of an all in one utensil. The fold-a-cup showed no signs of
wear at the crease where it folds in half, which was a concern but appears not
to be an issue.
Summary
The Wildo Eating Essentials Campware Set is a versatile set of eating options
and appears to be made to last. All of the items did well for their
primary functions although I feel they missed the mark with respect to cups.
The fold-a-cup is way too small to be usable for anything other than an
espresso and it does not keep liquids warm at all and the Kasa Bowl which could
be used as a wide mouthed cup is like drinking out of a bowl. Again the
main issue here is it doesn't keep liquids warm. The plates, both deep and
shallow are very nice to use, as are both bowls with the handles when used as a bowel.
The Spork is just fine as a utensil although it is a three-in-one tool so
it is not a great spoon, fork or knife but it is serviceable. The material
appear to be of high quality and built to last. My last comment is that
the set is overkill for one person and but not really set up for two people.
When I was using it for two people we always had to figure out who got
what and one person always got the short straw. Not that it was a major
deal just not what I would want in either a one or two-person camp set.
Likes
Clean easily
Kasa Deep plate
Handle on bowels
Dislikes
Need to re-think cup options
Spork knife is hard to use
Fold-a-cup too small
Thank you to Wildo and BackpackGearTest.org for allowing me to test the Wildo Sweden AB
Eating Essentials Campware set.
Read more reviews of WILDO Sweden AB gear
Read more gear reviews by Duane Lawrence
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