The remarkable durability of the food processor
Food processors are a labour-saving invention that have been in our kitchens since the 1970s making meals so much simpler and quicker to prepare.
Launched onto the UK market at a time when more women were going out to work yet were still cooking family meals at home food processors quickly became the mainstay of kitchen appliances and changed the way we cook forever.
The Magimix
Back in 1963 Pierre Verdon, a French catering company salesman, invented a food processor for professional kitchens named the Robot-Coupe.
By 1971 the first home version of the professional food processing appliance was launched under the name of Magimix and in 1974 was the first food processor to enter the UK market.
In 1975 an article in the New York Times named Magimix the “French revolution of the 20th century”.
Moulinex
Moulinex has its roots further back than Magimix, in the form of Jean Mantelet, a Parisian artisan who invented a hand-crank food mill for pureeing vegetables in 1932 called the Moulin-Legumes.
Jean Mantelet is quoted as saying “I take the greatest pride in having abolished women’s work”.
The design of the Moulin-Legumes is considered an early forerunner to the food processor.
Moulinex launch their electric food processor the Moulinette in the 1970s.
The Kenwood Chef
Designed by the company’s founder Kenneth Wood whose aim was to identify tasks that gave housewives the most work and produce machines that helped, the first version of the Kenwood Chef kitchen machine was launched at the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1950.
Following a re-design by Kenneth Grange, the designer who would go on to be responsible for the look of the British Rail’s InterCity 125 trains, the Kenwood Chef was launched as the company’s first food processor in 1979.
It was an instant success in the UK and is still Kenwood’s top seller today.
The endurance of the food processor
While other kitchen ‘gadgets’ have come and gone, food processors have stood the test of time and fashion.
Holding onto its popularity over the decades it is an ingenious appliance to have in the kitchen with its main purpose to make meal preparation easier and faster for the cook.
And who would not want that?
Did you have a Magimix, a Moulinex, a Kenwood Chef or something else? Do you still use it today?
Melina - Assistant Editor
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