Instant Pot Cooking Appliance Recalled From Walmart Stores
Instant Pot Manufacturing Defect Creates Fire Risk
Instant Pot, a popular kitchen gadget the New York Times heralded as having “spawned a religion” is being recalled because it’s a fire hazard.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has ordered Instant Pots pulled from shelves of Walmart -- the only place the multicookers were sold -- after getting reports the devices were overheating.
Officially known as the Gem 65 8-in-1 multicooker, the commission says a manufacturing defect in the appliance can make it overheat and melt on its underside. So far, the commission says it has received 107 reports of the devices overheating, with five of those incidents causing minor property damage. No injuries have been reported.
Popular Multicookers Were Sold Only by Walmart
The appliances are made by Foshan Linshine Technology Co., a company based in China and distributed to Walmart through Double Insight Inc., a Canadian company. Walmart starting selling the cookers in their stores and online in August 2017, with about 104,000 being sold.
The recall of the multicookers likely comes as a shock to what the New York Times described in a Dec. 17, 2017 article as the “legion of passionate foodies and home cooks.”
The newspaper reported that devotees of the devices “use their Instant Pots for virtually every task imaginable: sauteing, pressure-cooking, steaming, even making yogurt and cheesecakes.”
Instant Pot Recall
Media Raved Over Instant Pot's Popularity
Indeed, Instant Pot became a bit of an appliance media darling, with at least four other reports about its capabilities appearing in the Times, as well as other upbeat reports from Bloomberg News, Time, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and other media outlets.
“This holiday season, nothing in the kitchen is more buzzworthy than the Instant Pot — a multipurpose electric cooker that slow cooks, pressure cooks, sautes, steams and even makes yogurt from scratch,” The Los Angeles Times gushed in a Dec. 18, 2017 article. The paper added that the “gadget has attained cult-like status.”
Instant Pot Owners Should Return Them to Walmart
But now people with Instant Pots in their kitchens are being told by the CPSC, the federal agency tasked with protecting the public from defective products, to stop using them and return them to Walmart.
The recall involves Gem 65 8-in-1 model multicookers, a multifunctional, programmable cooking appliance, which includes the functions of roasting, baking, stewing, slow cooking, rice cooking, searing/sautéing, steaming and food warming. Instant Pot is printed on the front of the multicookers, while Gem 65 8-in-1 and a batch code of 1728, 1730, 1731, 1734 or 1746 are printed on the rating label on the underside of the product.
People needing more information can call the distributor, Double Insight, toll-free at 888-891-1473 or go online at www.instantpot.com and click on "Product Recall" or visit www.gemmulticooker.com.
