A cooling plate broader than it is deep, and the quiet difference between a setting and a promise

What changes in this design

At a broad level, someone may expect a device for frozen food or drink to use cold somewhere in the process. No everyday method, recipe, or food-handling steps are stated here.

This system includes a base unit, a flat plate, and equipment that cools that plate. It also gives one dimensional detail: the plate's horizontal dimension is greater than its vertical dimension.

Those dimensions help form a simple mental picture of the object: it spreads farther across than up and down. What it measures, how cold it becomes, and how the frozen food or drink is handled are not stated.

June 12, 2023

The company behind Instant Pot entered Chapter 11 on June 12, 2023, with $500 million to $1 billion in liabilities, which is where I start. Sales had fallen for seven straight quarters, including a 22 percent year-over-year drop in the first quarter of 2023. That is a sobering opening for an ice-cream maker, but it explains why I looked twice at a new countertop device.

U.S. electronic multicooker sales also showed the category shrinking fast: they fell from $758 million in 2020 to $344 million in 2022, roughly half. On November 8, 2023, IB Appliances US Holdings, LLC bought the appliance division; lenders converted $390.9 million of a $512.3 million debt load into all of its equity. The filing I came to belongs after that upheaval.

The cold plate

When I turn to US20260256164A1, published September 3, 2026, after a February 26 filing, its title is unusually broad: System For Making A Frozen Food Or Drink. The filing describes a system with a base unit, a cooling plate, and a cooling system. One stated detail is literal: the plate's first horizontal dimension exceeds its second vertical dimension. The public filing does not record a CPC classification; another patent database places its family under ice-cream and frozen-confectionery apparatus codes A23G9/08 and A23G9/22.

Instant Pot's InstantChill uses a built-in compressor to cool both a churning bowl and a separate flat plate. Its product page says it makes soft serve in about 20 minutes per pint, and rolled ice cream in about seven minutes, without overnight pre-freezing. Capacity is two pints in the bowl and two-thirds of a cup on the plate. The offer, as I read it, moves the wait from the night before to the moment dessert is wanted.

Thai cold plates

The underlying food technique isn't new, I don't think. One food-history account traces rolled ice cream, known in Thailand as ai tim phad, to street vendors around 2009, using a plate cooled to roughly -15 C. It reached the United States through a New York shop around 2016 or 2017. That history matters because the cold-plate technique at the center of this product predates the patent by well over a decade.

What changes in my kitchen is the source of cold. The rival Ninja Creami asks us to freeze a proprietary pint solid, then uses a drill-like blade to shave it; one comparison puts the freezer time at about 24 hours before processing. InstantChill uses active cooling instead. The convenience difference feels real to me, especially for someone who decides on dessert too late to plan it yesterday.

The $250 counter

That distinction, I would not treat as enough on its own. The Ninja Creami launched in 2021 and sells in roughly the same $200-$250 range, but it has a loyal following and a larger recipe and troubleshooting community. A machine is not just its cooling method. Practical knowledge is also something we buy into: which bases work, how to fix a crumbly batch, and what to do after the first disappointing try.

The early evidence for InstantChill looked thinner to me. A June 2026 review put its price at about $250, called the 18-by-13-by-9-inch machine not tiny, and reported only 28 marketplace ratings. The reviewer found soft-serve consistency that needed extra freezer time to firm up. That is a small review record, not a verdict. Still, it weakens the cleanest no-pre-freeze promise if a firmer bowl of ice cream remains the goal.

Where the risk actually sits

Two risks stand out to me, neither resolved by a filing. One is practical: can a counter machine with a churning bowl and flat plate earn space at 18 by 13 by 9 inches when its amounts are capped at two pints and two-thirds of a cup? The other is performance: can it consistently make the finished dessert a buyer expects without adding the wait it promises to remove? The available review gives me reason to ask, but not enough evidence to answer.

That is where I land on US20260256164A1. US20260256164A1 is, as I read it, a formal marker for a real product after corporate upheaval, not proof that the product has solved the harder consumer problem. A Thai street-food technique can work on a cold plate. A rival's loyal following shows that a ritual can matter. What remains unproven is whether this machine can make convenience, texture, size, and confidence add up on an ordinary counter.

Sources

Reporting for this piece drew on the published filing and the references below.

1. System For Making A Frozen Food Or Drink
2. U.S. Patent Application 20260256164 bibliographic data
3. Instant Pot standalone company, new leadership post-bankruptcy
4. Instant Brands: Instant Pot Sold, Lenders Take $390.9M Equity
5. The Thai Origins Of Rolled Ice Cream
6. Instant Pot InstantChill Ice Cream Maker
7. Instant Pot InstantChill Review: Is It Worth Buying? Is It Better Than Ninja Creami?
8. Instant Pot InstantChill Review
9. My Ice Cream Maker Just Became TikTok Famous

The record, briefly. US20260256164A1, “System For Making A Frozen Food Or Drink” A frozen-food-or-drink system includes a base unit with a cooling plate and cooling system configured to cool it, with the plate's first horizontal dimension greater than its second vertical dimension.

More angles on this

• Inside edible coating compositionAnother reading from the same A23G classification family, cocoa.
• A Baked Product's Specified Sugar RelationshipAnother reading from the same A23G classification family, cocoa.
• CPC A23G: CocoaThe official classification family this record was filed into, published in the USPTO Cooperative Patent Classification scheme.
• Fermented Milk Makes the Next Move Easier to SeeAnother reading from the neighbouring A23C classification family, dairy products, e.g. milk, butter or cheese; milk or cheese substitutes; preparation thereof.
• The cheese ripening record that coats every face, then leaves two of them openAnother reading from the wider A01J classification family, manufacture of dairy products.

Read around this one:Public patent recordUSPTO published figure