Kitchen Appliances: A Portable Refigerator and Stove

Featured in the pages of the WSJ late last year, the $70 ChotuKool portable refrigerator is the opening salvo in the intense competition for India's consumer appliance market. The market is large enough that Indian firms are investing R&D money to come up with low-cost alternatives to traditional household appliances. $70 is still a steep price for many of the world's poor, so many will have take out microloans or pool their resources in small collectives to afford these products.




Here's a related example from the same WSJ piece: First Energy's Oorja (biomass) stove. The stove costs $23 and the pellets needed to use it, cost about $5.50/month.