The SOTO Outdoors story began in 1978 with the Shinfuji Burner of Japan. Temperatures there can drop to -40 ° C in winter, and at this time, many burners would take 2 to 3 minutes to preheat. SOTO’s founder, Hajime Yamamoto, recognized the benefits of reducing preheating time and assembled a creative, technical and innovative team that shared his vision to develop a burner that would take only seconds to preheat.

The Shinfuji burner was born shortly after, setting a new industry standard, and the team became famous in Japan. Until 1986 the burner continued to celebrate ever more significant successes, especially in weed control in agriculture. The success inspired Yamamoto and his team to make outdoor products. An early development was the Pocket Torch, a small lighter with a powerful flame impervious to wind. After that, Yamamoto formed a new company, SOTO, to focus on building more products, like their famous stoves for adventurers. In Japanese, SOTO means ‘outside’.