If you love cooking, you’ll love Pampered Chef.
Guaranteed.
Pampered Chef is a popular network marketing company that offers home and kitchen products via the direct sales model.
Living room parties, three-way calls, and Facebook friend prospecting are routine tactics with these guys.
Despite all that, something is working for Pampered Chef, or they wouldn’t be owned by one of the top 5 largest companies in the world.
The question is, can you make any dough with this MLM? Keep reading to find out.
FAQ
1. What does Pampered Chef sell? Pampered Chef offers a line of kitchen tools, food products, and cookbooks for preparing food in the home. They also offer some products to help transport some of their products and gardening tools.
2. What are Pampered Chef’s most popular products? Pampered Chef’s stoneware bakeware has been a favorite for years. Not only is it available in the original raw unglazed state, it now comes with a beautiful glaze that makes it as useful for serving as for baking. Their kitchen gadgets are always popular, from teak wooden spoons to measure-all cups to mini serving spatulas. Then, for the die-hard bakers, there are the unique tools you can’t find anywhere else, such as the mini tart shaper, pizza and crust cutter, and cut-n-seal tart maker.
3. How much does it cost to join Pampered Chef? To join, you’ll need to fill out a consultant agreement and buy a starter kit. For that, you have three options: the basic starter kit ($109), the deluxe kit ($159), or the ultimate kit ($249). A little pricey (but Pampered Chef kinda is). So they offer a unique discount. Host your own first party and you’ll get a $25 or $50 kit credit toward your kit.
4. Is Pampered Chef a scam? No, Pampered Chef is a well-known and well-liked source for baking supplies. In fact, in 2002, it was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway, a very well-respected company. Will you get rich doing it? Probably not. At the very least, you’ll enjoy a side gig that gives you free products.
5. What is Pampered Chef’s BBB rating? A+
6. How long has Pampered Chef been in business? Since 1980
7. What is Pampered Chef’s revenue? It was $500 million in 2012. When the current CEO took control, she immediately started making cuts because sales had been down. Now, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s financial report, earnings are starting to rise, based on revenue increases and expense management. In other words, they’re still having to cut spending to stay profitable.
8. How many Pampered Chef distributors are there? 65,000
9. What lawsuits have been filed? In 2017, Truth in Advertising found unsubstantiated income claims that promote the company’s business opportunity. [1] In 1998, Pampered Chef sued Magic Kitchen for copying the layout, price format, product number format, and general appearance of their catalogs and sales materials, which violated Pampered Chef’s copyrights on those materials. They lost because they couldn’t prove the catalog was confusingly similar to their own. [2] There have been the usual suits from customers who were injured while using their products, like a woman who cut her finger when a ceramic baking pan broke. She was awarded $2.6 million. [3, 4, 5] There have also been the lawsuits filed by Pampered Chef over sharing trade secrets after a distributor leaves. [6, 7]
10. Comparable companies: Vector Marketing, Scentsy
They’re an established company, but as far as an income opportunity goes, you’re a couple decades late to the party and the chances of you making sustainable income with Pampered Chef is slim.
Click here for my #1 recommendation
Either way, here’s the full review on Pampered Chef.
Overview
Pampered Chef was founded in 1980 by Doris Christopher. Their founding story starts like that of countless other MLMs…in Doris Christopher’s basement.
By the 1990s they had more than outgrown her basement and were now expanding to Canada, the UK, and Germany. In 2002, they were acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, who still owns the company.
Berkshire Hathaway is a multi-national conglomerate owned by Warren Buffett, based in Omaha, Nebraska.
They own…well…just about everything. They wholly own GEICO, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, FlightSafety International, BNSF Railway, and a number of other companies. They also own almost half of Kraft Heinz, a portion of Mars, Incorporated, American Express, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, and IBM. [8]
They are the fourth largest public company in the world according to Forbes. [9]
In other words, Pampered Chef is in good hands. But you can forget about coming close to that dough they’re raking in — it’s for investors, not consultants. It’s not even for full-time employees.
Tracy Britt Cool was brought in by Warren Buffett to run Pampered Chef as their CEO in early 2015. Pampered Chef had seen declining revenue in 2014, so it was pretty clear she was brought in to try and get things back in shape. Her first order of business? Fire people. Pampered Chef saw the biggest decline in employment of any of Berkshire Hathaway’s companies in 2015. [10]
Of course, you’re not going to get fired as a consultant. You don’t cost the company money, because you probably don’t make any…
How much does Pampered Chef cost?
In order to join Pampered Chef, you need to buy a Consultant Kit.
- The Ultimate Kit costs $249 and includes $1,000 worth of product.
- The Deluxe Kit costs $159 and includes $650 worth of product.
- The Starter Kit costs $109 and includes $450 worth of product.
If you start by hosting a party, you get a $25 or $50 kit credit that you can use toward becoming a consultant, meaning you can join for as little as $59.
Products
The Pampered Chef sells kitchenware products, and they’ve got pretty much anything you could want to stock your kitchen with. The products are high quality and some are pretty affordable.
Bakeware, cutlery, cookbooks, appliances, grilling accessories, dishes, holiday sets, kitchen storage…you name it, they’ve got it. They even sell food products (see: Optavia).
Here are some of the favorites…
- Emoji cookie cutter set: $10
- Kids pizza making set: $45
- Herb infuser: $10
- Soups, stews, & chilis cookbook: $8.50
- Manual food processor: $52.50
- Small bamboo knife block set (4 pieces): $165
- Beer bread mix: $11
- Dutch oven & cookbook set: $139
The idea when the company was founded was to create powerful products and combine them with useful tips to help others achieve a faster, no-fuss cooking experience.
Nowadays their products mostly look like the same kitchenware you’d find at any other store, for about the same price, if not a little more expensive. But there’s nothing overly unique or interesting about them.
Compensation Plan
Commission rates vary depending on your monthly sales.
- $1-$749 in monthly sales gets you a 20% commission rate
- $750-$1,249 in monthly sales gets you a 22% commission rate
- $1,250-$2,499 in monthly sales gets you a 23% commission rate
- $2,500-$3,999 in monthly sales gets you a 24% commission rate
- $4,000+ in monthly sales gets you a 25% commission rate
As you might guess, most consultants make that 20% commission rate, which is below average.
However, once you hit $15,000 in career sales, your commission rate goes up by 2%. And once you start to build a decently-sized team, your commission rate bounces up to 31%, which isn’t bad.
Of course, if you’re going to make any decent money, it’s going to be from building up a big team.
The company also offers some pretty sweet product discounts to their consultants, including 50% off new items for a limited time. If you can’t turn a profit with them, at least you can get some discounted kitchenware.
Recap
I like the products and the idea behind the company.
But it’s a party-based MLM (like these home jewelry MLMs), and those are inherently flawed.
While going to an in-home party with food is better than going to one with empty Tupperware, it’s still the case that listening to your friend give the same sales pitch for the third time over isn’t the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
And holding these parties isn’t a productive way to make money, either. Even if you manage to get people to come, you have to sell A LOT of product to even turn a profit.
You’re basically paying money to sell your company’s products when you throw MLM parties – you probably want to offer food (especially at a kitchen utensil party), drinks, product demonstrations, and all of that costs money. Most people spend $200 minimum on their parties, so you’d have to sell $1,000 worth of $10 spatulas just to make your money back.
However, it could be a fun side gig if you’re really into their products or like the idea of doing cooking demonstrations as a hobby. The company itself is honest about earning potential, stating on their website that 75% of their consultants hold other jobs.
This isn’t full-time income by any means, but hey, who am I to stop you from getting a 50% discount on a new blender?
Look, I’ve been involved with network marketing for almost ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.
Pampered Chef had a good run, but I wouldn’t recommend them as a sustainable income opportunity.
After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:
