The next year, Cuisinart followed the Mini-Mate with the Little Pro, a similar product in the $75 range. Conair renamed the company Cuisinart Corporation and instituted a new marketing program for its products. With more advertising and product demonstrations, the new owners hoped to improve relations between Cuisinart and department stores, as well as become a presence in the bridal market.
Though professional chefs long had been using food preparation machines for slicing and shredding, the device largely was unknown to the American public before its debut in Chicago. Marketed to department and food stores, the Cuisinart food processor appeared to retailers and consumers to be nothing more than a high-priced, revved-up blender. The Sontheimers first saw restaurant food preparation machines manufactured by Robot-Coupe while visiting a housewares show in France in 1971. Certain that they could create a home version of the device, the Sontheimers launched their own housewares business–Cuisinart.
With its product firmly established, the company suspended its contracting of Robot-Coupe as the manufacturer of its food processors. A Japanese firm assumed the production of Cuisinart models instead. Whip up delicious drinks, smoothies, purees, and soups with the touch of a button. Make crushed-ice, ground spices, and nut-butters in a jiffy with the right blender on hand. Blenders save time and take up very little space in your kitchen. Target has a wide range of blenders in varying designs and functions.
In addition, Cuisinart was required to clarify for retailers that compliance with any suggested pricing was purely voluntary. Nonetheless Cuisinart impressed the industry with a line of coffee makers introduced at the 1995 Gourmet Products Show. These coffee makers reduced the acidity common to many home models. In addition, Cuisinart models responded to consumers’ tangible needs such as color and design. Moderately priced coffee makers started to look like Euro-styled top-of-the-line models.
Overcoming Sontheimer’s reticence, Cuisinart introduced the Mini-Mate, a chopper and grinder with a reversible, patented blade, in the fall of 1986. At $40 the device was less expensive than hamilton blender competing products and was introduced through a glossy magazine ad campaign created by Geers Gross. Promotions emphasized the Mini-Mate’s use in preparing common recipes such as tacos.
At this point in its history, Cuisinart had products in 70 percent of all small appliance categories. To gain acceptance, Sontheimer showed his food processor to James Beard, Julia Child, and other notable culinary experts. Their endorsements&mdash well as favorable articles in Gourmet magazine and the New York Times–likened Sontheimer’s Cuisinart food processor to landmark inventions such as the cotton gin and the steamboat. Cuisinart continued to add to its product line in 1998 with a cordless percolator in the Coffee Bar line and a new electronic hand mixer. The SmartPower CountUp Hand Mixer featured the lowest mixing speeds available and came equipped with a digital timer. Cuisinart has been perfecting the art of great cooking for over 25 years.