The Flare pan reviewed: Does it really work?

A study by the Energy Saving Trust and the Government showed that we spend between £150 and £180 just on heating and cooling food - and that was two years ago. Energy bills have risen since then.

That’s why I was particularly interested in a new pan, developed by Lakeland in conjunction with Dr Thomas Povey – Professor of Engineering at the University of Oxford. His field of expertise is thermo-dynamics applied to rocket engines, so he is a real-life rocket scientist.

Clearly that’s what my kitchen needs, an injection of space age technology to save me time and money. According to the design team a conventional pan needs 40% more energy to heat up than a Flare pan, that’s quite a claim.

Comparative heating - Flare pan (left) vs a standard pan (Image: MATLAB Handle Graphics)

So I acquired a pan – which looks very satisfyingly like part of a jet engine thanks to the heat-conducting fins. It certainly looks very attractive, but can it save energy and therefore cash?

Comparative cooking

To truly test the potential of this saucepan probably requires lab conditions, repeated tests and a variety of pans to compare it to. I had none of those things, so instead I decided to race the Flare pan against my similar-sized, conventionally-shaped Le Crueset saucepan (thank you, wedding list).

In an attempt to make things as fair as possible, I used the same hob for each pan and timed how long it took to bring two litres of cold water up to the boil. Thanks to a handy jam thermometer I was also able to see which cooled faster.

Testing the Flare pan at home

The results

It took my conventional pan 15 minutes and 20 seconds to heat to 100 degrees, while the Flare pan achieved boiling point in 14 minutes and 35 seconds. That means 45 seconds less, which is about 5% faster.

That’s not quite the 40% faster that the marketing suggested, but it was definitely quicker.

However, the key thing that worried me about this pan was whether or not the fin design would also help it cool more quickly than a conventional pan – which I was concerned would mean it took more energy to keep the food simmering during the cooking process.

So I checked the pans’ temperatures every five minutes as they cooled down and the results surprised me:

Time spent cooling	Le Creuset pan	Flare pan
5 minutes	82 °C	81°C
10 minutes	73 °C	73°C
15 minutes	69°C	68°C
20 minutes	65°C	63°C
25 minutes	60°C	58°C

So although the new design did heat up a little faster, it cooled only slightly more quickly than my existing pan – a heavy pan that is known for its ability to retain heat. Having expected it to cool much more rapidly, I was pleasantly surprised.

Will it save me money?

Shaving 5% off my heating time isn’t that exciting – it is hardly going to save me a fortune in the kitchen. However, I began to think about how many pans I boil in a year. It’s at least seven a week (none on some days, two or three on others), so at least 364 in a year.

Flare pan (Image: Lakeland)

If I could save 40 seconds of heating time on each pan, that would mean more than four hours of boiling time saved over 12 months.

The Energy Saving Trust report showed that the cost of using hobs is an average of £33 a year – a 5% saving equates to £1.65, meaning it would take almost 40 years for the pan to pay for itself at the current price (assuming I used it for everything). Of course, that’s not to say bigger savings aren’t available for different types of cooking. It’s possible simmering, frying and all manner of other cooking would use less energy too. But even at a 40% saving and using them for everything, a full set of flare pans would still take 13 years to pay for themselves at current prices.

However, although it might not save me a substantial sum, think how much energy could be saved overall if more households used less energy this way?

This new design of pan has received awards, including one from the Worshipful Company of Engineers for being an “outstanding engineering innovation that delivers a demonstrable benefit to the environment”.

So while it may not save much money, small changes can add up to a big difference when it comes to the nation’s total energy use and therefore our environmental impact. Perhaps we should ask the country’s top engineers to take a look at domestic products more often…

The pans start at £49.99 and are available online.

What do you think? Would you use this saucepan? How else can we save money in the kitchen? Have your say using the comments below.