In depth: food processors explained
The reviewers used different yardsticks, and the oldest evidence is from 2020
Six pieces of independent writing sit behind the scores, and they do not share a method. Ideal Home says its team ran each machine at its test facility or at home, checking grating, slicing, mixing and chopping, ease of cleaning and storage, and value including attachments. TechRadar's team mixes, chops, slices and shreds foods such as nuts, onion, bread, beef and cake batter, and checks evenness, whether food sticks, noise, assembly, cleaning and storage. Expert Reviews says every model goes through a series of tests including a chop test, but it publishes no dates or setup.
The two single-model reviews are narrower. Ideal Home's 2022 Kenwood review was written after the maker loaned the machine for two weeks, and Woman & Home's Bosch review from December 2020 covers slicing, chopping and bread-making. TechRadar's Cuisinart review, from December 2025, used specific amounts: 250 g of almonds, 240 ml of double cream and a red onion.
This matters because evidence of different ages should not be treated as equal. The Magimix, Kenwood and Cuisinart each have a review from 2025 or 2026, the Ninja has one from 2024 and one from 2026, and the Bosch has only one from 2020. That is why the Bosch scores below the Kenwood on chopping, slicing and grating, even though its bowl and motor are bigger on paper. Only the Cuisinart has a measured noise figure, 99 decibels.
The Magimix and the Ninja are not rivals, they answer different questions
The Magimix 4200XL costs £59.01 more than the Ninja BN800UK, and the two are close in score, with the Magimix ahead on the strength of its guarantee and bowls. Their strengths barely overlap. The Magimix has a 950 W motor, three bowls from 1.2 L to 3 L, 2 mm and 4 mm slicing and grating discs, and a motor guarantee of 30 years. The Ninja has a 1,200 W motor, a 1.8 L bowl, a 2.1 L jug, a 700 ml cup and Auto-iQ programmes.
If your week includes bread, large batches of coleslaw and long cooking days, the Magimix is the better tool, and Ideal Home and TechRadar both praise its versatility and its dough strength. If your week includes smoothies, soups and a morning shake, the Ninja gives you a jug the Magimix lacks, and Expert Reviews rated its blending as the smoothest its reviewer had seen. The Ninja is not designed for long kneading, according to Expert Reviews, and the Magimix has only one speed according to TechRadar.
The Ninja has the larger owner base: John Lewis shows a 4.40 average from 1,288 reviews. The Magimix has no verified owner sample in our sources, so the placing at the top comes from two independent reviews and the guarantee, not from the crowd. That is a judgement call on evidence, and the order is close enough that availability could swing it, since the Ninja is out of stock at John Lewis and discontinued at Lakeland.
Under £70 the real trade is slicing against size against guarantee
The Kenwood MultiPro Go at £54.99, the Cuisinart FlexPrep at £54.99 and the Bosch MultiTalent 3 at £69 cover the budget end, and each wins on one thing. The Kenwood wins on evidence, with three independent sources and a slicing result Ideal Home liked. The Cuisinart wins on guarantee, with 3 years against the Kenwood's 1 and the Bosch's 2. The Bosch wins on bowl size, with 2.3 L and a 1 L liquidiser against 1.3 L and 1.1 L.
The Cuisinart's loss is the slicing disc, which it does not have, and the noise: 99 decibels while chopping onions. The Kenwood's is the working capacity of 750 ml. The Bosch's is the age of its only review and its stock, with one unit left at Hughes.
Put numbers on the bowl and the gap closes less than the sticker prices suggest. The Cuisinart and the Kenwood cost the same on the day we checked, so the choice between them is not about money. It is about whether you value a disc that slices and a bowl 0.2 L larger over two more years of cover. The Bosch costs £14.01 more than the Cuisinart and brings 1.2 L of extra bowl, a liquidiser and a dough tool, which is a lot of kit for the difference.
A cook who wants to chop an onion, shred a courgette and whip cream will be happy with the Cuisinart. A cook who wants to slice potatoes for a gratin should look at the Kenwood. A family who wants a big bowl at the lowest price per litre, £30.00, should look at the Bosch, accepting the thinner evidence.
Who should skip the first place
The top pick is not the right buy for everyone. If you cook for one, the Magimix's 3 L bowl and 7.7 kg weight are a burden, and the Kenwood MultiPro Go does the small jobs for £214.01 less. If you make smoothies every day, the Ninja's jug beats anything else on the list. If you have no socket near your worktop, the KitchenAid cordless chopper is the only machine here that does not need one.
And if you are choosing mainly to knead bread, the machines in this group are a second choice to a stand mixer, which our stand mixer comparison covers.
Buying guide: choosing the right food processor
A big motor does not make a big bowl, and the bowl is what you notice
The motor wattage on the box says less than the bowl size. The Ninja BN800UK has a 1,200 W motor and a 1.8 L processor bowl; the Magimix 4200XL has 950 W and a 3 L main bowl, with a 2.6 L midi bowl and a 1.2 L mini bowl nested inside. Ideal Home still picked the Magimix as the most versatile and TechRadar found it strong enough for heavy bread dough, so the lower wattage did not hold it back.
Bowl size is what decides how many rounds you run for a family meal. The Kenwood MultiPro Go holds 1.3 L in total, and Ideal Home put its working capacity at 750 ml, so grating a block of cheese for a lasagne and chopping the vegetables for the sauce means emptying the bowl between jobs. The Magimix's main bowl is more than twice the size, and the Bosch's 2.3 L bowl is the largest below £100.
Price per litre of main bowl makes the trade visible. The Bosch costs £30.00 a litre at £69, the Kenwood £42.30, the Cuisinart £49.99, the KitchenAid chopper £67.75, the Magimix £89.67 and the Ninja £116.66. The Ninja looks expensive on that measure because its processor bowl is only part of the machine; it also has a 2.1 L jug and a 700 ml cup.
A second effect is on washing up. Ideal Home likes that the Magimix's bowls nest and cut down on washing up, while the Bosch's jug and chopper unit are stored separately and the chopper unit is not dishwasher safe, according to Woman & Home. A larger machine with more parts is more to clean, so the extra capacity has a cost in minutes after dinner.
A big bowl is the wrong choice if you cook for one. Small amounts of food slide around a wide bowl and the blade struggles to catch them. The Cuisinart FlexPrep and the Kenwood are the better fit for one or two people, and TechRadar's reviewer found the Cuisinart took a red onion through in under 10 seconds.
A blender jug turns one machine into two, but only one model here has a full-size jug
The Ninja BN800UK is the best food processor here for anyone who also wants smoothies, soups or sauces, because its 2.1 L jug and 700 ml cup sit on the same 1,200 W base. Expert Reviews said it gave the smoothest blended results its reviewer had seen. Replacing a separate blender with it can save worktop space, though the combined machine is 48 cm tall according to Ninja.
The Bosch MultiTalent 3 offers a smaller option, a 1 L liquidiser, which Woman & Home describes as able to work as a mini processor too. It does not match a full jug for smoothies for four. The Magimix has no blender jug at all, which Ideal Home lists as its one drawback, although TechRadar found it handled soups and sauces without leaking in the main bowl. The Kenwood MultiPro Go, the Cuisinart FlexPrep and the KitchenAid chopper have no blender.
If you already own a decent blender, paying £155 more than the Kenwood for a jug is waste. If you do not, the Ninja costs £59.01 less than the Magimix and covers both jobs, with the caveat that Expert Reviews says it is not designed for prolonged kneading.
Slicing is where small machines quietly fall short
A chopping blade is the one tool every machine has. Slicing and grating discs are where they differ. TechRadar lists the Cuisinart FlexPrep without a slicing attachment, and Cuisinart itself lists a chopping blade, a reversible shredding disc and a whipping blade. That is enough for coleslaw but not for a gratin of even potato slices.
The Kenwood MultiPro Go does better on that front. Ideal Home's reviewer sliced potatoes to about the thickness of a pound coin, and grated a 350 g block of cheese in under 10 seconds, though some crumbs were finer than ideal. The Bosch MultiTalent 3 comes with reversible slicing and shredding discs, but Woman & Home found carrots tipped over without a holder in the chute, which made the slices uneven. The Ninja's reversible disc gave uniform slices of pepper, carrot and cabbage according to Expert Reviews, though Ideal Home found it too fine for large shavings.
The Magimix is the one with a choice of thickness: Magimix lists 2 mm and 4 mm slicing discs and 2 mm and 4 mm grating discs. If you slice vegetables for a weekly roast or grate cheese by the half kilo, that choice matters more than any wattage.
Slicing is the wrong thing to chase if you mostly make dips, pastes and crumbs. The KitchenAid cordless chopper has no disc at all, and for herbs, nuts and a single onion it does not need one.
Dough shows who has the stability and the motor for heavy loads
Most of these machines list a dough blade or tool, but the evidence on how well they use it varies. TechRadar says the Magimix is strong enough for heavy bread dough. Magimix backs that with a 30 year motor guarantee, which is a claim few manufacturers make about a motor they expect to be pushed.
The Bosch got a more modest endorsement. Woman & Home found that bread dough on speed one worked well, did not wrap around the spindle and produced a loaf that rose. The Kenwood MultiPro Go managed a tortilla dough in Ideal Home's 2022 review, but it moved around unless the reviewer held it down, a sign that a light 650 W machine is not designed for a big batch. Expert Reviews says the Ninja is not designed for prolonged kneading, even though it comes with a dough blade.
If you bake a loaf every week, the choice is the Magimix or, on a tighter budget, the Bosch at £69. If you make pizza dough once a month, any of the first four will cope for a single small batch. The Cuisinart and the KitchenAid chopper have no dough tool in their lists, although TechRadar's reviewer did make shortcrust pastry in the Cuisinart.
For a regular baker, a stand mixer may be a better home for dough than any of these, and our stand mixer comparison covers that.
Noise and storage are costs the price tag hides
Noise is rarely measured. TechRadar recorded 99 decibels when chopping onions in the Cuisinart FlexPrep and called it incredibly loud, because the machine has only on and pulse settings and no power control. Woman & Home called the Bosch fine on speed one and whiny on speed two. For the Magimix, Ninja, Kenwood and KitchenAid, noise is not stated in anything we read.
Storage is easier to compare. The Magimix is 43.5 cm tall and weighs 7.7 kg, so it lives on the worktop. The Ninja is 48 cm tall, the tallest here. The Bosch weighs 3.65 kg, and its jug and chopper unit need separate storage according to Woman & Home. The Kenwood MultiPro Go measures 29.7 x 23.9 x 15.8 cm and Robert Dyas notes it is small enough to keep in a drawer, with a cable that tucks away. The Cuisinart is 20 x 16 x 33 cm.
A machine you leave on the worktop gets used more than one you must fetch from a cupboard, but a heavy machine in a high cupboard is a reason not to bother. Match the machine to the shelf you have, not the one you imagine.
A 30 year guarantee covers the motor, not the whole machine
The guarantee column looks dramatic. Magimix quotes 30 years on the motor, 3 years on parts and labour, and 30 years of spare parts availability. The Cuisinart FlexPrep has 3 years, the Ninja 2 years on registration, the Bosch 2 years, and the Kenwood MultiPro Go 1 year. The KitchenAid page we read does not state a guarantee.
The per-year cost shows the logic. At £54.99 for 1 year of cover, the Kenwood costs £54.99 per guarantee year, against £18.33 for the Cuisinart's 3 years at £54.99. The Magimix's 3 years of parts and labour cost £89.67 a year, but its 30 year motor cover and spare part promise are why Ideal Home and TechRadar's praise for its build carries weight.
A long guarantee is less useful if the part that fails is a bowl lid or disc, which parts and labour covers for only 3 years on the Magimix. If you expect to use a machine hard for a decade, ask the retailer how a claim works before you buy.
A mini chopper answers a smaller question than a food processor
The KitchenAid cordless chopper and, to a lesser degree, the Cuisinart FlexPrep are the mini choppers in this group. Expert Reviews says the KitchenAid handles vegetables, fruit, herbs, meat, eggs and nuts, and that its battery takes a couple of hours to charge and lasts one to two weeks of use. There is no slicing or grating, and the guarantee is not stated.
For £79.95, you could buy the Cuisinart FlexPrep and still have £24.96 left, with a shredding disc, a whipping blade and a 3 year guarantee. You would pay for the cable. That is the choice: the cordless chopper suits a small kitchen with no socket nearby, or a student who wants to chop herbs and nuts without a cable, and the Cuisinart is better value for anyone with a socket.
Readers searching for a mini chopper should also know the Bosch liquidiser doubles as a small chopper, according to Woman & Home, which makes the Bosch an unusual alternative at £69.
Check stock before you fall for a price
Stock was the hardest part of this comparison. Hughes lists the Kenwood MultiPro Go at £49.97, but only for collection in store, with delivery not available. The Ninja is out of stock online at John Lewis, where it has 1,288 reviews, and Lakeland lists it as discontinued. The Cuisinart Mini Prep Pro and the Sage Kitchen Wizz Pro, both reviewed by Expert Reviews in 2024, were out of stock when we checked their retailer pages.
The Bosch at Hughes shows one unit left. A machine that is available from one retailer today may not be next week, so look at the delivery wording as well as the price. If the Magimix at £269 is the one you want, Magimix's own page shows it reduced from £340, and a promotion like that may end.
