What’s Cooking at Aprovecho

A Four-Nation Design Collaboration

On their recent trip to SSM in Shengzhou, China, Nordica and Jaden were reminded that many minds are always better than one. SSM were gracious hosts to ARC, OffgridSun from Italy, and Tango Energy from Tanzania for a week. Together, they designed a stove for Tanzania that addressed cooks’ needs, had improved performance, and could be jointly manufactured at SSM and Tango Energy. Meeting in person turned a several-month-long process of emails and phone calls into a streamlined week of design. Maybe when it comes to stove design, there is no such thing as too many cooks in the kitchen.

ETHOS 2026

The ARC team attended another successful ETHOS conference, this year in Portland, Oregon. Sam and Dean hosted Stoves 101, providing a valuable crash course in cookstove design. We also presented on the effects of forced air in stoves, LEMS testing around the world, RTKC capacity building, and much more. ETHOS is always a great time for us to reflect on the work we did and what we learned throughout the year. It’s also wonderful to see what everyone else is working on.

LEMS Around the World: Now in Burundi

Our mission to ensure everywhere has the capability to perform stove emission testing continues. Sam traveled to Burundi where he set up a LEMS and trained (in French) a team at the Laboratoire de Biomasse et de Cuisson Propre et Économe/Université du Burundi. Over 10 ISO tests on various stove types were run with the lab team as well as lab CCTs, a vital test to measure stove performance while performing a cooking task. ARC is now working to add CCT capabilities to their open-source data processing software.

Working in another language takes patience but it allows ARC to work in cross-cultural settings where lab testing, stove design, and market testing come together.