By Chris Nicholls
MELBOURNE: Meyer Cookware Australia has announced a voluntary recall for its Raco Deco-branded stainless steel electric kettles, saying the heating element could rupture and cause the product to stop working.
The affected products come from batch numbers between 0640 and 0652, and 0701 50 0752. Product numbers that need returning within those batches are 42320RDE, 42321RDE, 42322RDE, 42323RDE and 42324RDE. Approximately 10,000 of the 20,000 or so kettles sold are affected. Product and batch numbers are located on the base of the kettle.
Meyer Cookware Australia operations director Bob Radcliffe said while the element could rupture, the element was part of the base and not exposed to the consumer, and therefore posed no threat of electrocution or other physical injury.
“This is all encased in the polypropylene base, so there’s no danger of anyone touching or becoming electrocuted by the product. No problem whatsoever,” he said.
The kettles were sold through Target, Harris Scarfe and various independent retailers, Radcliffe said.
Affected customers can obtain a full refund by sending the kettle back to Meyer Cookware Australia, Radcliffe said. Meyer Cookware Australia will send out a plastic packing satchel to each customer affected so they can send the kettles back free of charge.
“Once we get the details from the call centre that handling the product recall, then we’ll send that [the return pack] to the customer,” he said.
“As soon as we receive that by return mail, a refund cheque will go out to each consumer,” he said.
Meyer Cookware also sold the affected models in New Zealand via their local arm there, said Radcliffe. He confirmed a recall would take place in New Zealand, but would not be announced until Wednesday there, due to time needed to put the recall mechanisms in place.
“It was a relatively new market for us too, so we needed to try and get that into place. So pulling in the press hand, contacting the retailers, getting out the notices etc. So it was just a little bit of a lag in that one,” he said.
In order to prevent the issue recurring, Radcliffe said Meyer Cookware Australia had decided to replace the heating elements in all future batches with a German-made design that had exceeded their testing results for the problem heater.