If you own a food processor, there’s a pretty good chance it’s a Cuisinart. And if it’s a Cuisinart, there’s a pretty good chance you are now part of a massive product recall regarding the blade.
The problem? The blade can crack, causing small pieces of the metal blade to break off into the food. So far there have been 69 reports of people finding pieces of the blade in their food, including 30 reports of mouth lacerations or tooth injuries.
This week, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Cuisinart announced a voluntary recall on the blades of approximately 8 million food processors sold from July 1996 through December 2015. According to a tweet from Scott Wolfson, communications director for the CPSC, it’s the largest kitchen appliance recall in the agency’s history.
The recall specifically applies to blades with four rivets that connect the two serrated arcs of stainless steel to a beige plastic center hub. The affected model numbers begin with CFP-9, CFP-11, DFP-7, DFP-11, DFP-14, DLC-5, DLC-7, DLC-8, DLC-10, DLC-XP, DLC-2007, DLC-2009, DLC-2011, DLC-2014, DLC-3011, DLC-3014, EV-7, EV-10, EV-11, EV-14, KFP-7 and MP-14. You can find the model number on the bottom of the food processor.
Consumers are asked to immediately stop using the blade. They can call Cuisinart at 877-339-2534 or go online to recall.cuisinart.com to request a free replacement.
You may need to be patient, though. A call made Wednesday afternoon to the phone line resulted in a busy signal, and a subsequent one reached a recorded message directing people to the website because of the high volume of calls.
Since the recall was announced, the recall website and Cuisinart’s main website have apparently experienced sporadic outages. It’s unclear how long it will take for replacement blades to arrive (but when they do, Cuisinart suggests you use the packing materials to safely dispose of the old one).
Of course, the recall comes at one of the worst times for those of us who rely on our food processor as a kitchen workhorse: holiday baking season. Naturally, home cooks have taken to Twitter to share their frustration, sarcasm and firsthand reports of broken blades:
“.@Cuisinart Now more than 24 hours of trying the phone lines and the website and still no luck. #CuisinartRecall”
“‘Just don’t eat the blades'” is such a 2016 answer to the Cuisinart story.
“Ooooh Cuisinart has to add a new setting on their food processors. People have had tooth damage and mouth lacerations from bad blades. Yum!”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Becky Krystal
