The story
Founded by Carl Sontheimer in 1971.1
Cuisinart was founded in 1971 by Carl Sontheimer, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was inspired by his love of French food. This led to the creation of Cuisinarts, Inc. and its main product, the food processor. Cuisinart introduced its machine in January 1973 at a trade show in Chicago, a reworked and rebranded Robot-Coupe / Magimix 1800 food processor for North America in 1973 under the Cuisinart brand. This was as America's first home kitchen food processor. The success of Cuisinart was limited at first, until a review in Gourmet magazine helped to lift sales. Later, Sontheimer contracted with a Japanese manufacturer to produce new models in 1977 in order to immediately launch his new Japanese-made food processor in 1980 when his contract with Robot-Coupe expired. Cuisinart continued to sell both the Japanese-sourced new machines and the original French-sourced machines for a time.
Throughout the mid-1970s, Cuisinart sales rose due to the brand's association with celebrity chefs such as James Beard, a close friend of Sontheimer. Sales in 1980 were stated at 290,000 units. Cuisinart hired industrial designer Marc Harrison in the 1970s to design new products and improve other existing designs; many of the company's products became associated with universal design. Harrison made its products more functional for users with disabilities, designing larger fonts so that people with vision problems could see them.
By the mid-to-late 1980s, Cuisinart incurred financial troubles and suffered from falling sales. A group of investors bought Sontheimer's interest in the company in 1987 for $42 million. However, by August 1989, the company filed for bankruptcy. This led to Conair buying the company for $27 million in 1989.
From Wikipedia’s article on Cuisinart, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4