Among themselves, they speak an abstruse language punctuated with “Momo”of “TM6”of “Varoma”of “reverse mode”. They wield insider humor: “I did it with my Companion…” And seem animated by a pride, an enthusiasm, an almost disproportionate fervor compared to what they evoke. Namely the brioche, the velouté or the risotto successful the night before.
The owners of multifunction cooking robots form a funny, playful, talkative and proselytizing tribe whose members recognize each other by their ecstatic words: “It’s life changing, honestly, I wouldn’t live without it. » The French market bears witness to this household appliance addiction, year after year. Thus the Thermomix (from the Vorwerk brand), the Cook Expert (Magimix), the Companion (Moulinex), the Monsieur Cuisine (Silvercrest), the Digicook (Arthur Martin), the Cooking Chef (Kenwood) and other Cookits (Bosch), imposed their massive presence in the kitchens of a good 16% of homes – against 11% in 2018. Some 650,000 copies sold in 2020, after 570,000 in 2019, according to GFK Market Intelligence.
“Since the launch of the Thermomix, France is the country where we have sold the most in the world”, appreciates Nathalie Gamby, marketing director of Vorwerk, the German brand that manufactures it, in Eure-et-Loir. In the land of gastronomy, the fifty-year-old German robot has especially sparked since 2004 thanks to the success of cooking shows (20,000 copies sold per year). Since 2014, in the connected version (TM5 then TM6), it colonizes 200,000 new worktops each year despite a price (1,359 euros) higher than the monthly minimum wage.
Everything but groceries and peeling
The low cost, simultaneously, has made a place. With their Monsieur Cuisine Connect then Smart at less than 400 euros, Lidl supermarkets have, since 2019, democratized the laminated kitchen assistant: in December 2021, like two or three times a year, 200,000 robots were torn off in stores. The spring 2020 lockdown, of course, helped. Three meals a day for the household, telecommuting, stores that are too far away, or have become frightening, and boredom that won: the assisted kitchen has saved more than one parent and occupied the children, who have become independent on rice pudding.
“We try everything, we succeed in everything, we invite the whole world. It’s like a big adult toy”, recognizes Delphine Cornier, physiotherapist, owner of a Magimix
Presented as the cream of technology, with their integrated scale, their touch screen, their Wi-Fi connection, their on-board recipes, their anglicisms with a ladle (“smart”, “connect”, “touch”), these cooking robots promise everything except shopping and peeling: they weigh, chop, grate, grind, cut, mince, beat, knead, mix, emulsify, steam, sear or simmer… The whole lexical field of cooking going there.
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