Secrets America’s Test Kitchen Desperately Tried To Hide

America’s Test Kitchen was the singular vision of one food-obsessed creator. So why was he kicked off of the show?

#FoodShow#Secrets #Hidden

Humble beginnings | 0:00
No experience | 0:49
Shakeup | 1:36
Lawsuits | 2:16
Free food | 3:12
Gorged on brownies | 4:07
Manicured | 4:45
Cheaper is better | 5:20
Relocating | 6:01
Costly process | 6:46
Volunteers | 7:28
Employees voted to unionize | 8:02
Major layoffs happened in 2023 | 9:01

Voiceover By: Kelly Daly

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America’s Test Kitchen was the singular vision of one food obsessed Creator so why was he kicked off of the show almost 10 years before America’s Test Kitchen launched in 2001 a 32-page magazine debuted called Cooks Illustrated the magazine started by Christopher Kimble who had previously launched Cooks magazine in 1980 has never accepted advertisements and has been loved by home Cooks ever since as the descriptions of the recipes are lengthy and include the science behind the cooking as well as stories of testing and how the chefs arrived at the published best version but after 30 years of publishing without advertisers Cooks Illustrated is still going strong Peter ducet a managing director at FTI Consulting told digiday America’s Test Kitchen made a strategic decision that was atypical at the time but preent because they built a stable business not one that is dependent on episodic ad Revenue most fans of America’s Test Kitchen associate the brand with its founder Christopher Kimble as he served as the onair host from 2001 to 2016 but it might surprise you to learn that Kimble was not a professional chef and never worked in a kitchen before founding Cooks Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen in some ways this helped to develop his approach to teaching Kimble explained to mostly food and Cocktails I’ve always been interested in cooking I spent Summers and weekends in Vermont and in the town there was a baker Marie she sold bread and cookies and pies I spent a lot of time at her house she had the Vermont technique of teaching never tell people what to do just show them what to do kimle said that her approach def finded the show don’t tell style that he would later use on America’s Test Kitchen if I was doing something wrong I’d suddenly noticed her next to me doing it the right way without saying anything everyone has failure in the kitchen it’s okay despite Christopher Kimble being the founder of Cooks Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen he ended up leaving the show after 16 years due to a contract dispute with the show’s parent company Boston Common press David nus bomb the chief executive of Boston Common press released a statement saying we made every effort to offer Chris a reasonable contract that reflected his significant contributions to the company and are disappointed that we could not reach agreement at the time nusp was hired as the company’s first ever CEO a spokesperson for America’s Test Kitchen denied rumors that nus bomb’s arrival would push Kimble out however bringing someone else on to oversee Kimble who had long been at the top of the company seemed to create friction perhaps unsurprisingly he was gone just 2 months later when Christopher Kimble left the America’s Test Kitchen Empire he didn’t go quietly Kimble started a competing brand also in Boston called milk Street Kitchen there was a corresponding magazine called milk Street along with a TV show a cooking school cookbooks and a pot that resulted in a lawsuit over breach of trust from Boston press claiming that Kimble stole confidential customer lists and Trade Secrets as reported in the Washington Post the suit said Mr Kimble spent the last year of his employment with America’s Test Kitchen creating a new Venture which literally and conceptually ripped off America’s Test Kitchen in response the New York Times reported Kimble called the lawsuit absurd and said that it defamed him the litigation dragged on for almost 3 years and was scheduled to go to trial Kimble along with his children and ex-wife still owned stock in America America’s Test Kitchen and eventually he agreed to sell the shares to settle the lawsuit a joint statement was released which read in part America’s Test Kitchen and Christopher Kimble’s Milk Street agree that an amicable separation is in the best interest of their respective companies if you work at America’s Test Kitchen you may have more to look forward to than just skill building and a paycheck you also get free food as the leftover recipes that are tested are saved for employees in the take-home refrigerator this is both part of an effort to reduce food waste and to provide a unique snack or even full meal for the almost $200 hungry workers however while employees value this perk employees complained on glass door of low wages Aton Cyrus a former recipe tester at America’s Test Kitchen told WGBH people are regularly relying on the take-home fridge for their next meal it’s supposed to be a fun perk for people to enjoy new foods not something that people need to depend on to make ends meet however Aaron mcmurrer The Test Kitchen director at America’s Test Kitchen puts a more positive spin on it saying the staff can come and visit that fridge all day long and take food home for dinner the grocery bills of probably the entire staff have gone down since they started working at America’s Test Kitchen The Leftovers get packed up by all the cooks and we have a take-home refrigerator with all of those extra calories floating around it might be hard to restrict yourself to a healthy diet Christopher Kimble and Bridget Lancaster spoke at length with fresh airs Terry Gross in 2011 about what happens when you have to eat so many test samples Lancaster said one of the worst things is brownie tastings because you don’t just have to taste them you have to feed on them all day one of the test cooks that works there she and I counted up the calories that we consume in one day and it was frightening Kimble said some Cooks try to combat the extra weight with extra exercise some people take up riding 20 mi back and forth to work on a bike or do other things but yeah a lot of people will gain four or 5 lounds a year if they’re in the process of developing recipes in the kitchen all the time while anyone who has worked in a kitchen knows that a chef’s hands are frequently burnt cut scraped and otherwise terrorized by the hazards of cooking audiences have different expectations for onair talent they don’t want to see messy hands around food at America’s Test Kitchen special hands models stand in for the upclose photography for cookbooks and video segments hand model Dan salucci told CBS yeah I mean I’ll get a phone call once in a while do you mind just getting a manicure two more onair hand models back up this claim Von veland told the Wall Street Journal he got a manicure before his job interview with tasty while UK model Tara manyy says she expenses all her manicures America’s Test Kitchen has always tried to give practical advice to home chefs making the cooking process as easy as possible and that includes using cheap equipment Julia Colin David one of the current co-hosts of America’s Test Kitchen explained to wwm just because you want to start cooking and you want to outfit your kitchen you don’t have to spend a lot the team’s favorite chef knife isn’t fancy and costs $45 wow the book kitchen hacks how clever Cooks get things done published by America’s Test Kitchen includes a section on how instead of using a traditional kitchen tool like a stainless steel slicer a home cook can use unwaxed dental floss instead the next time you want to serve up some soft cheese at your dinner party find your next best test kitchen tool at the drugstore after Christopher Kimble departed America’s Test Kitchen new CEO David nusom decided to make some changes including relocating the whole operation America’s Test Kitchen started on the second floor of a quirky former broom factory in Brookline Village that was 150 years old but a space that size couldn’t accommodate a huge expansion for the sake of more video content ATK kids or group tours if the brand was going to expand the space would be the first piece that needed an upgrade the headquarters was relocated in 2017 into a former military Warehouse graduating to eight stories in the Boston sea port where multiple Studios a library and over 60 ovens were housed for testing and Innovation WBUR noted the new building was so large that cooks country executive food editor Brian rof uses a Razor scooter to zip around while the taste testing portion of recipe development sounds fun it’s also quite an extensive and expensive process as each recipe costs approximately $111,000 to produce Dan Souza a food science expert at America’s Test Kitchen allow deated on why the recipes can be so pricey he noted that part of the process is to try at least five recipes to start bringing over 55 Cooks plus the editorial staff to give feedback the kitchen can test recipes up to 100 times over 2 months before sending them out to volunteer home chefs soua said we look for 80% of people to say they’d make the recipe again if they say no we go back to the kitchen we have to spend roughly $111,000 on each recipe we do considering the company reportedly makes over 1,000 recipes per year that budget line really adds up because those recipes are so expensive to develop an integral part of the process is volunteer home Cooks 50,000 of them to be exact Jack Bishop Chief content officer at America’s Test Kitchen said this program allows 50 to 100 audience members including families with kids to test out a new recipe and contribute data on how easy it was if it tastes good and most importantly if they would make it again Stephanie Patterson one of those volunteer home Cooks told CBS Sunday Morning I feel like I’m helping them make the recipe as good as it can be before they print it I know it sounds like I amazing job um and it is in July 2022 America’s Test Kitchen staffers voted to unionize forming ATK United about 100 non-management workers delivered a letter to management which was posted on the ATK United Twitter account the letter stated plainly our salaries have always been egregiously low also included in the letter were complaints about the high profits of the company not being reflected in salary increases for the employees and how workers at America’s Test Kitchen were still sacrificing personally due to insufficient resour s ources the letter went on to additionally demands higher pay increased subsidization of commuting costs lower health insurance premiums and a commitment to diversity America’s Test Kitchen spokesman Brian Franklin said to WGBH the management of the company would prefer to continue to work directly in collectively with employees in the future rather than have to deal with a union on their behalf but the majority of workers voted to unionize Camila chaparo senior books editor stated I am unionizing for the fair pay that we deserve and I am beyond proud to stand in solidarity with this exception group of co-workers and Friends despite how outwardly successful America’s Test Kitchen and the surrounding properties have seemed there was a major round of layoffs from the company in 2023 according to an Instagram post on ATK United not only did America’s Test Kitchen shut down ATK kids but it also let go of about 10% of its total Workforce or 23 employees ATK kids was focused on children’s cookbooks and kid-friendly recipes but employees from the standard books and marketing teams were let go too in a statement to eer a spokesperson for ATK said while we firmly believe that our decisions will reposition the company for greater success in this everchanging media environment it is a difficult time given that we let go of members of the company who contributed to ATK each in their own way Don tremazi president of communications workers of America local 1400 in Boston offered his own statement it’s disappointing that this new executive leadership including the CEO has made a decision to put profits over people this is nothing more than corporate greed and not caring about the passionate workers who have built this company in their profits we are going to do everything within our power as a union to get these employees the best exit packages possible [Music]