KitchenAid stand mixers are pretty much the gold standard for home bakers and are some of the most popular items during Black Friday every year. But there are growing allegations that the gold standard may come with another heavy metal that we all want to avoid at all costs: lead. Could we see a KitchenAid mixer attachment recall soon?
Consumer safety advocate Tamara Rubin recently revealed that some accessories for KitchenAid stand mixers contain lead — and if you have them, you may be able to get safe replacements from the brand at no cost to you ahead of a potential KitchenAid class action.
There hasn’t been an official recall yet, but some customers have been getting replacement parts from KitchenAid to mitigate their risk.
So what’s happening with KitchenAid right now? Is your mixer safe to use? What pieces may have lead in them? Is there a recall? We’ll tell you everything you need to know. (And if it’s product recalls you’re after, we keep an ongoing list of what you’ll care most about.)
Both new and old KitchenAid stand mixer attachments are accused of having lead content.
According to Rubin’s research, all KitchenAid stand mixer cast aluminum attachments from all years may contain lead. This reportedly includes mixer attachments sold in 2022.
Not all KitchenAid stand mixer accessories have lead content — but the most common ones do. The cast aluminum attachments that come standard with KitchenAid stand mixers are contaminated with lead. The standard attachments are the whisk, dough hook, and paddle, but any other attachments made from cast aluminum may also contain lead — not just the standard three, per Lead Safe Mama.
Rubin tested hundreds of aluminum KitchenAid attachments and found that nearly all of them were contaminated with lead.
Important: The actual KitchenAid stand mixers themselves have not been found to contain lead.
Independent testing revealed lead content way above the government’s safe levels.
The amount of lead reportedly found in KitchenAid stand mixer aluminum attachments is absolutely concerning: one aluminum dough hook tested positive for 2,434 parts per million (ppm) of lead.
For reference, the Consumer Product Safety Commission states that there should be no more than 100 ppm of total lead content in products with parts accessible to children. What’s more, the World Health Organization states that there’s no amount of lead exposure that’s safe for people of any age.
That said, while you aren’t likely to get lead poisoning from using cast aluminum KitchenAid stand mixer attachments, Rubin notes that using these items may contribute more to your total body burden of lead, or the amount of lead your body absorbs and processes over time.
Related: The Best KitchenAid Mixer Attachments — All Lead-Free
Some KitchenAid stand mixers come with a Prop 65 warning.
Several KitchenAid stand mixers are labeled with a Prop 65 warning. These warnings are from a California law that requires businesses to reveal to California residents if their products pose a risk of “significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.”
While KitchenAid doesn’t specify which chemicals are at play, it’s possible that the products listed with Prop 65 warnings may contain lead, which is on the list of chemicals covered by the Prop 65 law.
Neither KitchenAid nor the U.S. government has issued a KitchenAid mixer recall yet.
Despite Rubin’s research, neither KitchenAid nor the U.S. government has issued any kind of a recall for the potentially contaminated mixer attachments.
In response to growing concern over potential lead contamination, KitchenAid sends commenters on social media the following prepared statement, which denies the allegations:
Attorneys are considering filing a KitchenAid class action lawsuit over the appliance’s aluminum attachments.
KitchenAid users have raised concerns about the cast aluminum attachments that come with the mixers — in particular that these attachments are contaminated with poisonous lead.
According to ClassAction.org, customers “have reason to believe” the mixer attachments have been contaminated with lead. Attorneys have been getting information from KitchenAid users and have said they “have enough to go on” to move forward with their legal proceedings — which could easily mean a class action lawsuit.
We wrote to ClassAction.org about this case, and got the following statement from Senior Managing Editor Corrado A. Rizzi:
As far as we know, the attorneys we work with are still actively investigating this with a view to filing a lawsuit. They just don’t need to speak to any other consumers right now. However, there’s no guarantee that any case will be filed.
If a class action is, in fact, pursued, customers may be able to be refunded for some of the purchase price of their KitchenAid mixer or lead to a recall of the cast aluminum products and potentially change the way KitchenAid mixer attachments are manufactured and/or sold in the future.
RELATED: All of the class action settlements that may owe you money.
Ask KitchenAid for lead-free replacement mixer attachments — but be prepared for a long wait.
If you have cast aluminum KitchenAid stand mixer attachments, you can request lead-free replacements — which, to be clear, you shouldn’t even need to do, but that’s currently where we are.
Plenty of concerned KitchenAid owners have called their customer service line (1-800-541-6390), only to wait hours and to have varied results. Even the chat on the contact us page shuts down due to “extremely high volume”. You can email CountertopCollectionsUSA@KitchenAid.com specifying when you purchased or received your mixer and requesting lead-free replacements for the cast aluminum attachments that came with it. If you’d like a sample form email, you can use the text provided here — it’s rather long, so we suggest using a command- or control-F for “Dear KitchenAid” to get directly to the letter.
Here are some of the customer experience we’re hearing about via Facebook:
“After waiting on hold for over an hour, I finally got to someone and she told me they undergo third party tests and are approved by the FDA. She said they were not going to replace [the attachments]. I asked for a supervisor and she came back and said she was authorized to give me 20% off the beaters. I said no, I’m not happy with that … their products have toxic levels of lead and they should replace them without charging the consumer. She went back to the supervisor and came back and said she got the authorization to replace the flat beater with the stainless one. I’m happy with that. For the record, mine was bought in 2006 and she noted that when she looked up the serial number. You will have to be more pushy and not accept ‘no’ [for an answer].” – Jan. 23, 2023
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