SHERIDAN — RJ Bungert has spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how best to transport his lunch. He has spent so much time thinking about this issue, in fact, Bungert’s luxury lunch box company, Outter Limits, is now a finalist in the 2021 Sheridan Start-Up Challenge.
Like many stories in northeastern Wyoming, the story of Bungert’s new-and-improved lunch box began in Campbell County coalfields. Bungert spent 10 years running heavy equipment for coal mines, working 12 to 14 hours and traversing miles of bumpy terrain each day. The long days required Bungert to bring a hefty lunch and entertainment — a newspaper, tablet or other activity to do during downtime — to work.
A lunch storage problem quickly became apparent: none of the lunch boxes, Bungert said, could withstand the wear and tear of traveling with him through coalfields. Bungert accidentally shredded three to four lunch boxes each year. The single receptacle in most lunch boxes — combined with bumpy coalfield terrain — crushed his meals and rendered ice packs ineffective. None of the lunch boxes had sufficient storage space to hold Bungert’s daily entertainment. He opened his worn lunch box each day to bruised fruit, soggy sandwiches and nothing with which to amuse himself.
Unhappy with this pattern of buying and re-buying lunch boxes only to have them destroy his lunch, Bungert started to experiment with building his own lunch box. This is how the Outter Limits bag — a water-resistant backpack with a removable hot or cold food storage center and rubber base to resist wear — came to be.
The Outter Limits lunch box looks like a reinforced backpack. Inside, however, the bag stores what Bungert calls the vault, or a customizable, hot or cold food storage container. Bag pockets, insulated liner and the vault transport food and drink at the desired temperature. The padded lid of the bag, when supported by the vault, doubles as an on-the-go seat.
Bungert hopes to release a second version of the bag in spring 2022. The new version will be fully waterproof — rather than just water resistant — and will include an upgraded bag liner.
Bungert entered his Outter Limits bag in the 2021 Sheridan Start-Up Challenge, run by Sheridan’s branch of IMPACT 307, a statewide business incubator operated through the University of Wyoming.
Skye Heeren, assistant director of IMPACT Sheridan, IMPACT 307’s local field office, identified Bungert’s business as a Start-Up Challenge contender. The Outter Limits bag, Heeren said, was field tested by Bungert and has a strong possibility of expanding beyond Wyoming, throughout the region and the nation.
Although Outter Limits’ production facilities are located in Gillette, the 2021 Sheridan Start-Up Challenge accepted entries from ventures in Johnson and Campbell counties. Heeren said IMPACT 307 hopes to host a Gillette Start-Up Challenge in May 2022.
Start-Up Challenge judges selected Bungert’s Outter Limits as one of six finalists, out of 40 applicants. This year’s three winners, which will be selected at the WYO Performing Arts and Education Center on Pitch Night next week, will split $100,000 seed capital based on the financial needs of their businesses.
Bungert hopes the Sheridan Start-Up Challenge will help Outter Limits increase name recognition. Should Outter Limits win the challenge, Bungert said, he plans to use the seed capital to offset some of the costs he has invested in the business and continue building the new version of the lunch box.
In the future, Bungert hopes to expand production of the Outter Limits bag while keeping production local and creating more jobs in northeast Wyoming.
“With this idea, I feel like we can create so many different products…” Bungert said. “If we can do what we hope to do with this, it could create a lot of jobs for America.”
The winner of the Sheridan Start-up Challenge will be chosen at a public Pitch Night event, hosted by the WYO, Nov. 10 at 5:30 p.m.
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November 06, 2021 at 03:00PM
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Building a better lunch box: Sheridan Start-Up Challenge contender RJ Bungert's efforts to create indestructible lunch bag - The Sheridan Press
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