Cuisinart ( ) is an American kitchen appliance and cookware brand owned by

Conair Corporation Conair Corporation is an American company based in Stamford, Connecticut which sells small appliances, personal care products, and health and beauty products for both professionals and consumers. It is majority-owned by private equity firm Am ...

. Cuisinart was founded in 1971 by

Carl Sontheimer Carl G. Sontheimer (1914 – 23 March 1998) was an American inventor and engineer best known for creating the original Cuisinart food processor. Sontheimer was born in New York City but raised in France. He returned to the U.S. to attend the Mas ...

and initially produced food processors, which were introduced at a food show in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in 1973. The name "Cuisinart" became synonymous with "food processor." The brand's name is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of "cuisine" and "art." Cuisinart was purchased by

in 1989.

History

Cuisinart was founded in 1971 by

, a graduate of

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

who was inspired by his love of French food. This led to the creation of Cuisinart and its main product, the

food processor A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate repetitive tasks in the preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food ...

. Cuisinart introduced its machine in January 1973 at a trade show in Chicago, a reworked and rebranded Robot-Coupe / Magimix 1800 food processor for North America in 1973 under the Cuisinart brand. This was as America's first domestic

. The success of Cuisinart was limited at first, until a review in ''

Gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by their high level of refined and elaborate food preparation techniques and displays of balanced meals that have ...

'' magazine helped to lift sales. Later, Sontheimer contracted with a Japanese manufacturer to produce new models in 1977 in order to immediately launch his new Japanese-made food processor in 1980 when his contract with Robot-Coupe expired. Cuisinart continued to sell both the Japanese-sourced new machines and the original French-sourced machines for a time. Throughout the mid-1970s, Cuisinart sales rose due to the brand's association with celebrity chefs such as James Beard, a close friend of Carl Sontheimer. Cuisinart hired industrial designer Marc Harrison in the 1970s to design new products and improve other existing designs, many of the company's products became associated with

universal design Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible to people, regardless of age, disability, or other factors. It emerged as a rights-based, anti-discrimination measure, which seeks to create design ...

. Harrison made its products more functional for users with disabilities, designing larger fonts so that people with vision problems could see them. By the mid-to-late 1980s, Cuisinart incurred financial troubles and suffered from falling sales. A group of investors bought Sontheimer's interest in the company in 1987 for $42 million. In August 1989, the company filed for bankruptcy. This led to Conair buying the company for $27 million.

Legal troubles with Robot-Coupe

In the late 1970s, a legal dispute between Robot-Coupe and Cuisinart began when Robot-Coupe started marketing home food processors in the US under their own brand name. Robot-Coupe hired Alvin Fineman, Cuisinart's former marketing director in 1979, who engaged in competitive advertisements that resulted in a lawsuit. A court enjoined Robot-Coupe from continuing that particular ad, so Fineman's campaign changed to: "There are many food processors made in Japan. The original is still made in France."

Products

Products produced under the Cuisinart brand include: * Air fryers * Bakeware * Handheld and standing blenders *

Bread machine A bread making machine or breadmaker or bread maker is a home appliance for baking bread. It consists of a bread pan (or "tin"), at the bottom of which are one or more built-in paddles, mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. The ...

s * Countertop blenders * Brick ovens * Can openers * Coffeemakers * Coffee grinders * Convection ovens * Cookware * Cutlery *

Cutting boards A cutting board (or chopping board) is a durable flat surface on which to place material for cutting. The kitchen cutting board is commonly used in food preparation with knives; other types exist for cutting raw materials such as leather, rubber o ...

* Deep fryers *

Dutch oven A Dutch oven, Dutch pot (US English), or casserole dish (international) is a thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. Dutch ovens are usually made of seasoned cast iron; however, some Dutch ovens are instead made of cast aluminium, or ...

s *

Espresso Espresso (, ) is a concentrated form of coffee produced by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Originating in Italy, espresso has become one of the most popular coffee-brewing methods worldwide. It is cha ...

makers *

Food processor A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate repetitive tasks in the preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food ...

s * Grills, griddles * Hand mixers * Ice cream and sorbet makers * Juice extractors *

Kettle A kettle, sometimes called a tea kettle or teakettle, is a device specialized for boiling water, commonly with a ''lid'', ''spout'', and ''handle''. There are two main types: the ''stovetop kettle'', which uses heat from a cooktop, hob, and the ...

s * Microwave ovens * Popcorn makers *

Raclette Raclette (, ) is a dish of Swiss cuisine, Swiss origin, also popular in the other Alpine countries (France, Italy, Germany, Austria), based on heating cheese and scraping off the melted part, then typically served with boiled potatoes. Raclette i ...

s *

Rice cooker A rice cooker or rice steamer is an automated kitchen appliance designed to boil or steam rice. It consists of a heat source, a cooking bowl, and a thermostat. The thermostat measures the temperature of the cooking bowl and controls the heat. C ...

s *

Scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

Slow cooker A slow cooker, (also known as a crock-pot after a trademark owned by Sunbeam Products, but sometimes used generically in the English-speaking world), is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used to simmer at a lower temperature than ...

s * Speciality appliances * Stand mixers * Toasters * Toaster oven broilers * Waffle makers

References

{{Home appliance brands 1989 mergers and acquisitions American brands American companies established in 1971 Companies based in Stamford, Connecticut Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1989 Companies that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Cooking appliance brands Electronics companies established in 1971 Home appliance brands Home appliance manufacturers of the United States Knife manufacturing companies Manufacturing companies based in Connecticut Manufacturing companies established in 1971