Owala is a kitchen and grill brand founded in Utah in 2020. It is headquartered in Lehi, Utah.
Owala will not say what its name means. Asked by Nexstar, a spokesperson for parent company Trove Brands said, "we'll keep that close to the vest," and called the naming process proprietary. The bottle has a clearer backstory. Trove, the Lehi company behind the BlenderBottle shaker, first sold the FreeSip under the BlenderBottle name. It underperformed and was pulled.
The idea came from watching customers. Trove noticed people using their shakers as everyday water bottles. Steve Sorensen, who cofounded Trove with his wife Kim and is credited with the invention, summed up a split in the company's research: "You have the straw people, and you have the spout people." The FreeSip's patented lid settles it with a built-in straw and a wide opening on the same bottle.
The FreeSip came back under the Owala name in March 2020, and Owala became what the company calls the fastest-growing brand in the water bottle market. TIME put the FreeSip on its 200 Best Inventions of 2023 list. Scarcity does some of the work. Limited colorways arrive in scheduled Color Drops, and some resell for hundreds of dollars. The Sorensens' son Michael now runs Trove from Lehi, and the name remains classified.
In October 2025 Owala hid koalas in the blue-and-white china pattern of its Heirloom FreeSip, and the company's blog post said, "we just love koalas."
New from Owala
Amor y Vida FreeSip
Owala released Amor y Vida on October 1, a Color Drop FreeSip made by young artists at Yollocalli in Chicago. Yollocalli is the youth program of the National Museum of Mexican Art, and it takes youth from 14 to 24.
