Five Electric Food Processors for a UK Home: What the Bowl Size on the Box Is Not Telling You
A 3.9-litre bowl holds 2.4 litres. A 3-litre bowl works to 1.3. Those are the manufacturers’ own figures, not ours. Before you compare wattage, compare the usable capacity — and then look at the guarantee, because that is where the difference between a £60 machine and a £300 one actually lives.
The short answer
Decision one: work out whether you want a processor at all. A processor is a prep machine — chopping, grating, slicing, pastry, dips, mayonnaise. It will not make a smoothie or a soup without a blender jug, and it will not do a stand mixer’s job at all. If what you want is a smoothie every morning, this is the wrong £150. The full breakdown of what each of the three machines cannot do is below, and it is the paragraph most worth reading before you spend.
Decision two: the bowl figure on the box is not the bowl you get. This is the one that catches people, and both numbers come from the makers themselves. Bosch advertise the MultiTalent 8 with a 3.9-litre XXL bowl and then give the usable capacity on the same page as 2.4 litres. Magimix advertise the 4200XL’s main bowl as 3 litres and give its working capacity as 1.3 litres. So the rule of thumb we would use: assume you get somewhere between a half and two-thirds of the advertised number, and buy accordingly. For one or two people, a 1.3-litre compact is a genuine machine, not a toy. For a household of four who batch-cook, a nominal 3-litre bowl is the sensible floor, and a nominal 2.1-litre one will have you working in two goes.
Decision three: the money is in the guarantee, not the wattage. Wattage barely separates these machines in practice — Currys sell a 250 W KitchenAid at £135 rated 4.7/5 from 117 buyers, and a 1200 W Ninja at £159.99 rated 4.8/5 from 2,074. What does separate them is what happens in year three. Ninja and Bosch both give two years. Kenwood’s own guarantee page gives “a minimum guarantee period of one year” on most products, with five years reserved for a named list of bigger machines that does not include the compact MultiPro Go. Magimix give 30 years on the motor, three years parts and labour, and 30 years of spare parts availability. That is the £300.
What we would buy. For one or two people in a small kitchen, the Kenwood MultiPro Go at £59.99 — it does the prep job, it fits in a drawer, and 447 buyers at Currys rate it 4.7/5. For a family, the Bosch MultiTalent 8 at £174.99, which has the largest usable bowl here and 352 buyers behind a 4.8/5. Buy the Magimix 4200XL only if you intend to still own it in 2040 — on the guarantee, that is a coherent thing to want.
Five processors, on the maker's and the retailer's own published figures
| Machine | Price and retailer | Motor | Bowl | Buyer rating | Guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenwood MultiPro Go FDP22.130GY / .130RD | £59.99 Currys, 8 Sep 2026 | 650 W | 1.3 L (nominal) | 4.7/5 from 447 Currys | Kenwood’s published minimum is one year; this model is not on their 5-year list |
| Ninja PrecisionPro BZ651UK | £84.99 (was £99.99) Currys, 8 Sep 2026 | 850 W | 2.1 L (as listed by Currys) | 4.9/5 from 42 Currys — small sample | 2 years |
| Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK | £159.99 (was £199.99) Currys, 8 Sep 2026 | 1200 W | 1.8 L bowl + 2.1 L jug Ninja’s figures; Currys list “2.1 L” | 4.8/5 from 2,074 Currys | 2 years (Ninja: on registration, UK & ROI) |
| Bosch MultiTalent 8 MC812S734G | £174.99 (was £189.99; Bosch RRP £189.99) Currys, 8 Sep 2026 | 1200 W | 3.9 L → 2.4 L usable Bosch’s own figures + 1.5 L jug | 4.8/5 from 352 Currys | 2 years |
| Magimix 4200XL 18471UK | £294.98 (RRP £420) at Magimix £299.00 at John Lewis 8 Sep 2026 | 950 W | 3 L → 1.3 L working plus 2.6 L midi and 1.2 L mini | 4.5/5 from 178 John Lewis | 30 years motor, 3 years parts and labour, 30 years spares |
Prices, ratings and sample sizes read off the retailer’s or maker’s own page on 8 September 2026. Where they disagree we print both: Currys list the BN800UK as “2.1 L”, which is Ninja’s jug; Ninja give the bowl as 1.8 L. Every rating here carries its sample size — the ones that did not are discussed below. Currys, John Lewis, Lakeland, Magimix UK, Kenwood UK, Russell Hobbs UK, Sage UK, Bosch UK and SharkNinja UK all served live pages on the day and are trading.
What happened to the 2021 version of this page
This page keeps its 2021 URL because that is what is indexed; nothing else about it has survived. The original no longer loads — shopbam.co.uk returns a 404 on this slug. The Internet Archive holds a snapshot dated 20 May 2026, and web.archive.org is blocked to our fetcher, so we have not read the old text and cannot quote its picks back at you. If you have a cached copy, treat every figure on it as void.
What has changed in the category since 2021
Sage’s Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro is gone. Sage’s own UK page for the BFP800UK now says “This model has been discontinued.” It was a 2,000 W direct-drive machine with a 3.6-litre bowl, and it was in a great many 2021 round-ups. Lakeland still list it, unavailable, with a Trustpilot score and no sample size attached.
The Ninja everyone recommended has been superseded. The BN650UK — 850 W, 2.1 L, £119.99 on SharkNinja’s UK site — is listed by John Lewis as “no longer available online”. Its replacements are the BN800UK and the cheaper PrecisionPro BZ651UK, both below.
Kenwood are still selling on a 2021 award. Kenwood’s page for the MultiPro Express FDP65.860WH (£149.99, 1000 W, 3.0 L bowl plus a 1.5 L blender) carries a “Which? Best Buy Food Processor 2021” badge. That award is five years old, and it is Kenwood’s own reproduction of it rather than something we read at Which?. We found no sample-sized buyer rating for that model anywhere, which is why the obvious mid-price Kenwood is not in our table.
Processor, blender or mixer — pick the right machine first
The single most expensive mistake in this category is buying the wrong kind of machine, and it happens because all three sit on the same shelf at similar money. The clearest breakdown we found is CHOICE’s, and it is worth reading as three lists of things a machine cannot do.
A food processor
It grates, shreds and slices fruit, vegetables and hard cheese, and it makes pastry, doughs, dips, curry pastes, batters and mayonnaise. It is a prep machine. Its job is the twenty minutes of chopping in front of a meal, not the meal. What it will not do, in CHOICE’s words, is blend liquids into smoothies or soups “unless equipped with a blender attachment” — which is exactly why the Ninja BN800UK and the Bosch MultiTalent 8 both ship with a separate jug.
A blender
Smoothies, soup, frozen drinks, emulsified mayonnaise. And then the list that matters: blenders “don’t knead dough, mash potatoes, grind nuts, make nut butters, chop vegetables or finely chop breadcrumbs”. If you have been trying to chop onions in a blender and getting onion soup, that is the machine working correctly.
A stand mixer
Kneading dough, mixing batter, whisking cream and egg whites — and it “can’t blend, chop or puree”. A stand mixer is a baking machine, and several take a food-processor bowl as a paid attachment, which is worth pricing up if you already own one.
That leaves the “2-in-1” and “3-in-1” machines in a decent place: a processor with a proper blender jug covers two of the three jobs on one motor and one footprint. What none of them covers is the mixer’s. Nothing in this table will beat a stand mixer for bread.
Bowl size: work out the number that is actually yours
We expected to have to infer the gap between advertised and usable capacity. We did not: two of the five manufacturers publish both numbers themselves, on the same page.
Bosch: the MultiTalent 8 is sold on a 3.9-litre “XXL bowl”. Bosch’s own UK product page gives the usable capacity as 2.4 litres. That is 62% of the headline figure.
Magimix: the 4200XL’s main bowl is 3 litres. Magimix give the working capacity as 1.3 litres — 43%. The 4200XL also ships with a 2.6-litre midi bowl and a 1.2-litre mini bowl nested inside, which is the actual answer to why a bowl you can only fill to 1.3 litres is not a problem: you use the small one for small jobs instead of scraping a teaspoon of pesto out of a bucket.
Neither Ninja nor Kenwood publish a working capacity we could find, so for those you are guessing. Our assumption, stated as one: halve the advertised figure for wet work, take about two-thirds for dry. Liquid is the constraint — a bowl with a hole in the middle for the drive shaft leaks out of the lid long before it is full.
So what size for what household?
- One or two people, small kitchen. A nominal 1.3–1.5 L machine is fine and it will actually get used, because it lives in a drawer instead of on the worktop. The Kenwood MultiPro Go is that machine at £59.99.
- Three or four, cooking most nights. Nominal 2–2.5 L. The Ninja BN800UK (1.8 L bowl) and the PrecisionPro are here.
- Four or more, or you batch-cook. Nominal 3 L and up, and check the usable number. On that test the Bosch’s 2.4 usable litres is the biggest bowl on this page — bigger, in real terms, than the Magimix that costs £120 more.
Where the money goes: motor, blades, guarantee
Not the wattage
The wattage here runs from 250 W to 1200 W and tracks neither price nor rating. Currys sell a 250 W KitchenAid at £135 rated 4.7/5 from 117 buyers and a 1200 W Ninja at £159.99 rated 4.8/5 from 2,074; Magimix’s £299 machine draws 950 W, less than the £174.99 Bosch. Watts measure electricity drawn, not work done.
Blades and discs — count what you will use
The Magimix 4200XL ships with Sabatier main and mini blades, a dough blade, an egg whisk, 2 mm and 4 mm grating and slicing discs, a BlenderMix ring, a triple pusher and a storage box. The Bosch lists eleven accessories including a French fries disc, a whisking disc and a citrus press. The Kenwood MultiPro Go ships with three. That is an honest £59.99 rather than a criticism — but two thicknesses on one reversible disc is the normal ceiling until you reach Magimix money.
The guarantee, which is the real difference
Here is the ladder, from each company’s own words:
- Kenwood: “a minimum guarantee period of one year” on most products. Five years is reserved for a named list — Cooking Chef, Chef Elite, kMix stand mixers, MultiPro Excel, MultiPro Sense — which does not include the MultiPro Go. Kenwood also state that registering the product does not extend the guarantee; your receipt is what counts.
- Ninja and Bosch: two years. Ninja’s own page attaches a condition — “2-Year Guarantee”, UK and ROI only, upon registration. Register it.
- Magimix: a 30-year motor guarantee, three years parts and labour against manufacturing faults, and 30 years of spare parts availability. The motor guarantee applies to food processors bought after 1 March 2015, and Magimix require proof of purchase.
Do the arithmetic and the gap looks different. A £60 machine replaced three times over fifteen years costs £180 and produces two dead appliances. A £299 machine with a 30-year motor guarantee and three decades of spares is a different proposition — provided you keep the receipt for thirty years, which is a real condition and not a joke.
One outside check, since we do not test machines. TechRadar’s round-up (Cat Ellis with Jessica Downey, updated 10 August 2026) tests by chopping nuts and onions, grinding beef, mixing batter and making mayonnaise, and lands where we did: the Magimix 4200XL most versatile, the Kenwood MultiPro Go best compact. Their overall winner is a Breville we have not priced in the UK, and their money is largely in dollars — use the ranking, not the prices.
The ones we could not put in the table, and why
Our rule is that a buyer rating without a sample size is not evidence. Applying it honestly knocked out several machines other round-ups would have included, so they are worth naming.
Russell Hobbs
Russell Hobbs sell the Desire 24732 direct at £76.99 — a 2.5-litre bowl with a 1.5-litre jug blender, stainless blades, a reversible slicing and shredding disc, a dough blade and a creaming disc. Their own page carries no customer reviews at all, and advertises a “Free 1 Year Extended Warranty” without stating the base guarantee. Currys list a related Desire 27111 2-in-1 at £74.99 (600 W, 4 L, two years) — out of stock, no star rating shown. A plausible budget machine at a plausible price and no evidence about it. If you buy one, you are buying on the brand.
Sage and Tefal
Sage’s Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro is discontinued, as above; the current model is the Kitchen Wizz 16, for which we could not verify a UK price with a sample-sized rating inside this piece’s research budget. Tefal’s DoubleForce Compact range (800 W, DO542140 and DO544140) is widely sold, but the Tefal UK pages we reached were the accessories and spares store rather than a priced product page.
The small-sample problem, even inside our table
The Ninja PrecisionPro’s 4.9/5 rests on 42 reviews. That clears our bar, but forty-two people is not two thousand, and it is a much softer number than the BN800UK’s 4.8 from 2,074. Currys also show the Kenwood Autograph MultiPro XL Weigh+ at £249.99 on 4.4/5 from 13, and a KitchenAid 5KFP0921BPT at £219 on 5.0/5 from 3. Three reviews is a rounding error. Read the sample size before the score, every time.
What each machine costs per year of guarantee
| What | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Kenwood MultiPro Go | £59.99 → ~£60 a guaranteed year | Our arithmetic: the price over the one-year minimum Kenwood publish for most products. If it lasts eight years the real figure is £7.50 — but the guarantee is what you can hold them to. |
| Ninja PrecisionPro BZ651UK | £84.99 → £42.50 a year | Two-year guarantee. 4.9/5 from 42 buyers at Currys — a real sample, but a small one. |
| Ninja BN800UK | £159.99 → £80.00 a year | Two years, on registration. Much the largest evidence base on this page: 2,074 ratings. |
| Bosch MultiTalent 8 | £174.99 → £87.50 a year | Two years — and the most usable bowl here at 2.4 litres, which is the number we would weigh most heavily for a family. |
| Magimix 4200XL | £299 → £9.97 a motor-guaranteed year | Over the 30-year motor guarantee. Over the three-year parts-and-labour cover it is £99.67. Both are true and they say different things. Keep the receipt. |
Before you buy, check
- Is it a processor you want, or a blender? If the honest answer is smoothies and soup, this is the wrong purchase. If it is chopping, grating, slicing and pastry, it is the right one.
- What is the usable capacity, not the advertised one? Bosch and Magimix publish theirs. Most do not — ask.
- Does the rating carry a sample size? A 5.0 from three reviews tells you nothing. A 4.8 from 2,074 tells you a great deal.
- How long is the guarantee, and does it need registering? Ninja’s two years is conditional on registration; Kenwood’s registration extends nothing, the receipt does.
- Count the discs you will use. Most give you one reversible disc at 2 mm and 4 mm. Only the Bosch and the Magimix here go further.
- Where will it live? A machine on the worktop gets used; one in a high cupboard does not. That is the whole case for the £59.99 compact in a small kitchen.
Where this came from
- Currys — food processors category listing Prices, wattages, capacities, guarantees and ratings with review counts for the Kenwood MultiPro Go, the two Ninjas and two KitchenAids · checked 8 September 2026
- Currys — Bosch MultiTalent8 MC812S734G £174.99 from £189.99, 1200 W, 3.9 L bowl, 1.5 L jug, eleven accessories, two years, 4.8/5 from 352 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Bosch UK — MC812S734G The £189.99 RRP and both capacity figures: a 3.9 litre bowl, 2.4 litres usable · checked 8 September 2026
- Magimix UK — 4200XL £294.98 against an RRP of £420, 950 W, a 3 litre bowl with a 1.3 litre working capacity, the midi and mini bowls, and the disc list · checked 8 September 2026
- Magimix UK — guarantees 30 year motor guarantee, 3 year parts and labour, 30 year spares — food processors bought after 1 March 2015, proof of purchase required · checked 8 September 2026
- John Lewis — Magimix 4200XL The second live price, £299.00, and a rating of 4.5 out of 5 from 178 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Ninja UK — 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK Ninja's own capacities — a 1.8 litre bowl and a 2.1 litre jug — and the two-year guarantee conditional on registration · checked 8 September 2026
- SharkNinja UK — Ninja BN650UK The superseded model at £119.99, 850 W, and a star rating published with no sample size · checked 8 September 2026
- John Lewis — Ninja BN650UK The listing recording the older Ninja as no longer available online · checked 8 September 2026
- Kenwood GB — guarantee information The one-year minimum on most products, the five-year list that excludes the MultiPro Go, and that registration extends nothing · checked 8 September 2026
- Kenwood GB — MultiPro Express FDP65.860WH £149.99, 1000 W, 3.0 litre bowl and 1.5 litre blender, and Kenwood's reproduction of a Which? Best Buy 2021 badge · checked 8 September 2026
- Kenwood — MultiPro Go FDP22.130GY The 1.3 litre bowl and its three attachments: chopping blade, reversible 4 mm disc, Express Serve chute · checked 8 September 2026
- Russell Hobbs UK — Desire 24732 £76.99 direct, a 2.5 litre bowl with a 1.5 litre jug blender — and no customer reviews at all · checked 8 September 2026
- Currys — Russell Hobbs food processors The Desire 27111 2-in-1 at £74.99, 600 W, 4 litres — out of stock, no star rating shown · checked 8 September 2026
- Sage GB — the Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro BFP800UK Sage's own statement that the model has been discontinued, plus its 2,000 W motor and 3.6 litre bowl · checked 8 September 2026
- Lakeland — Sage Kitchen Wizz Pro 3.7L The machine listed unavailable, and a Trustpilot score quoted without a sample size · checked 8 September 2026
- CHOICE — food processors v mixers v blenders What each machine does and, more usefully, what each cannot do — the source of decision one · checked 8 September 2026
- TechRadar — best food processor Bench testing by Cat Ellis with Jessica Downey: Magimix 4200XL most versatile, Kenwood MultiPro Go best compact · last updated 10 August 2026
- Tefal UK — DoubleForce Compact accessories store That the DoubleForce Compact DO542140 and DO544140 are 800 W — and that the UK pages we reached were spares listings, not priced pages · checked 8 September 2026
What we could not check
- We could not read the 2021 original. shopbam.co.uk returns a 404 on this slug, and although the Internet Archive holds a snapshot dated 20 May 2026, web.archive.org is blocked to our fetcher. We cannot quote the old page’s picks or prices back at you — only tell you what has changed in the category since.
- No Argos prices or ratings anywhere on this page. Argos product pages returned navigation only when we fetched them. Argos are trading, carry some of the best-populated review counts in the country, and are where we would look for the Kenwood MultiPro Express rating we could not get — we simply could not read their figures.
- Currys and Ninja disagree on the BN800UK’s capacity — Currys list 2.1 L, Ninja publish a 1.8 L bowl and a 2.1 L jug. We think Currys are quoting the jug, but neither has confirmed it.
- No sample-sized rating for the Kenwood MultiPro Express FDP65.860WH, which is why the obvious mid-price Kenwood is missing from our table. Its Which? Best Buy badge is Kenwood’s own reproduction of a 2021 award; we have not seen the Which? entry ourselves.
- No sample-sized rating for any Russell Hobbs, Sage or Tefal machine. All three may be perfectly good; we have no evidence either way.
- Usable bowl capacity is unpublished for Ninja and Kenwood. Our “halve it for wet, two-thirds for dry” rule is an inference from the two makers who do publish both figures, not a measurement.
- We have not tested any of these machines. Every specification is the maker’s or the retailer’s own, and the only bench testing cited is TechRadar’s — whose prices are largely in US dollars and whose overall winner we have not priced in the UK. Two smaller gaps: Bosch do not state a guarantee length on their own page (our two years comes from Currys), and the MultiPro Go’s wattage comes from Currys, not Kenwood.
- We do not know how a 30-year motor guarantee is administered in year twenty-five, what counts as fair wear, or what happens when the receipt is lost. Nobody publishes it — and it is the load-bearing claim behind the Magimix price.
- Every price here is from 8 September 2026. They will have moved.
Prices and specifications change constantly. Every figure here is dated — check the one in front of you before spending.