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Kelowna  

Back packing the pain


Kelowna resident Tim Roth had a problem, and it was one his fellow sportsmen could also identify with, so after four years in the making he finally has a solution.

The avid hunter says he has serious back pains and claims he isn’t the only one suffering, as most outdoors advocates complain of back issues, pressure point pain and movement restriction.

“So, I just started to play around with different ways to eliminate the suspension straps, then it came to us that you are constantly always wearing a jacket with our backpacks,” explains Roth. “So, we just decided to build the suspension system into the jacket.”

Roth and his business partner designed FloatPack Technology, to make a backpack feel like it is floating on your body by distributing the weight evenly throughout the garment instead of up on the shoulders.

“A 50 lbs backpack will then feel like a 10 lbs backpack,” says Roth.

Roth has patented FloatPack Technology and is the only company using it in North America.

Fouru Outerwear designs jackets, pants and a backpack frame which can connect any backpack on the market to the frame.
 
All of the Fouru Outerwear is manufactured in Vancouver, while the back packs are manufactured in Winfield and assembled in Kelowna, the entire product is Canadian made.

“With manufacturing overseas the quality just wasn’t there,” explains Roth. “We wanted to build the product that was not going to just last a couple of years but last you ten plus years.”

Manufacturing capabilities in Canada have a great reputation, but they are expensive. Despite that Roth and the company claim they would rather produce a good quality product rather than a great quantity of product.

“Manufacturing in Canada and North America is pretty much the most expensive world wide, and for us if we can get our numbers higher it will drop the cost of production and allow us to keep moving forward.”

Currently the cost of a total kit for consumers is $1300, which Roth says when compared to a product of equal quality is about 20 per cent less.

However in order to keep the product made in Canada, Fouru Outerwear needs a little financial assistance and to do so they have started a Kickstarter campaign.

The Kickstarter campaign starts in a few days and will ask consumers to donate or even purchase products to help keep manufacturing in our country.

“A $1,300 kit we are offering on Kickstarter for $1,000 and then if you wanted a suit shipped right now we are offering them that at $1,200.”

Fouru Outerwear is also asking hunters and back country hikers to take on the garbage bag challenge, where for every bag of trash removed from the bush you receive an entry to win gear.

The challenge started after Roth took his three daughters hunting one afternoon and discovered their favourite site had been trashed with garbage following a bush party.

“With contests on Facebook it’s all about liking and sharing to be entered to win so we just came up with a different idea of maybe them giving back in order to get something.”

For every 1000 bags of trashed collected Fouru Outerwear will donate a piece of gear, for more information click here.

Check out fouruouterwear.com to learn more about the company and their kick starter campaign.



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