America's Test Kitchen's Worst Secrets Exposed

The year 1992 was pretty big. The Cold War was officially declared over, Bill Clinton was elected as President of the United States, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Ruby Jubilee, the first text message was sent, and America's Test Kitchen took its first steps. The latter, of course, is one of the U.S.'s favorite cooking companies.

America's Test Kitchen's journey first began with the launch of the Cook's Illustrated magazine, but over the course of more than three decades, it has expanded significantly. It has filmed hundreds of TV shows, released multiple cookbooks, launched a food truck, and published countless recipes, all of which are devoted to helping people cook delicious food for themselves and their loved ones at home. America's Test Kitchen fills a need in American society; research suggests that nearly two thirds of U.S. adults either love or like to cook. 

But while America's Test Kitchen has achieved an enormous amount, the last few years have not always been smooth sailing for the company. Far from it, in fact. For one, America's Test Kitchen has endured a long and drawn-out feud with one of its former founders. It has also been faced with more than one lawsuit relating to its handling of consumer data, and it has been accused of underpaying employees. And that's not all. There have been issues with a lack of diversity and layoffs, too. Keep reading to find out some more of the worst (and worst-kept) secrets in America's Test Kitchen history.

In 2015, to the dismay of many fans, one of America's Test Kitchen's founders and most familiar faces, Christopher Kimball, left Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen for good. At the time, Boston Common Press, the publisher that owns both of the brands, claimed that the situation surrounding his departure from America's Test Kitchen was amicable. However, the lawsuit that followed suggested otherwise.

In 2016, after Kimball decided to start his own cooking-focused brand called Milk Street, America's Test Kitchen sued its former host for "ripping off" its concept. The company's allegations included that Kimball had stolen trade secrets and customer lists from America's Test Kitchen in order to start his own business. The lawsuit also claimed that Kimball "secretly solicited" employees from America's Test Kitchen to work with him. It alleged that around 15 former and current employees moved to Milk Street.

It took until 2019 for the lawsuit to be settled, when Kimball agreed that he would return his shares in America's Test Kitchen back to the company. Both Kimball and America's Test Kitchen agreed to bury the hatchet and move forward amicably (truly, this time).

At the time of writing, Milk Street is still in operation. The brand, which is still run by Kimball, has its own magazine, a podcast, a cookbook, and YouTube channel. Similar to America's Test Kitchen, it also has an extensive recipe database containing hundreds of globally-inspired recipes.

The situation with Kimball isn't the only lawsuit America's Test Kitchen has faced. In 2024, it settled a lawsuit that alleged it had disclosed consumer's personal information to Facebook without consent. According to the legal action, America's Test Kitchen violated the Video Privacy Protection Act when it provided information to Meta Pixel about consumers who watched one of its videos in 2020. 

Meta Pixel used to be known as Facebook Pixel, and it's a tool that was originally designed to help businesses with advertising and marketing. It essentially provides companies with information about their consumers behave, which can be used to improve and target marketing campaigns. For example, it can provide information on newsletter subscriptions, page views, or on-site purchases. It can also tell companies how long consumers have spent looking at their websites and how long they scrolled for. 

But Meta Pixel has got many companies into hot water. Also in 2024, Cerebral, a telehealth company, was forced to pay $7 million due to a pixel data leak. Again in 2024, the UK political organization Reform UK was investigated for using Meta Pixel to collect private data from consumers. In the same year, Swedish bank Avanza was fined SEK 15 million by the Swedish data protection authority for its use of Meta Pixel data. To settle its case, America's Test Kitchen paid $300,000 to class counsel on top of around $7,000 in legal costs.

In February 2023, America's Test Kitchen was acquired by Marquee Brands, a leading U.S. holding company that also owns the brands of Martha Stewart, Sur La Table, and Emeril Lagasse, among many others.Kent Savagian, a shareholder in America's Test Kitchen and Vice Chairman in the Global Investment Banking Group, said in a statement at the time that Marquee Brands was "the right partner" to lead the "iconic brand and its production of award-winning content." However, while the initial tone was positive after the acquisition, this soon changed for many people when in March, America's Test Kitchen laid off 23 of its employees.

According to a statement posted to Instagram by ATK United, the America's Test Kitchen union, the layoffs were announced despite the fact that workers were "assured that nothing would change" after Marquee Brands took control. The layoffs included 14 union members and nine non-union members. The union promised to advocate for severance packages and continued healthcare benefits for the members who had been let go from America's Test Kitchen, but clarified that it could not guarantee these benefits would extend to non-union members. It stated that ATK United's members would "wear black in recognition of the lost jobs."

America's Test Kitchen wasn't alone. Several companies laid off employees in 2023. Prominent examples include McDonald's, which restructured in 2023, as well as Alphabet (which owns Google), Microsoft, and Amazon. Around nearly 50,000 jobs were lost in total from the latter three companies combined. 

In 2022, after ATK United was formed, the union sent a letter to America's Test Kitchen's senior leadership team on behalf of its members. In the letter, it outlined the struggles of many of America's Test Kitchen's workers. ATK United then posted the letter publicly on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Among allegations of understaffing, a lack of diversity, inconsistent hiring processes, and inadequate subsidization for commuting costs, one of ATK United's biggest accusations was low pay. In the letter that was sent on behalf of its members, it stated that "It's no one's dream to live paycheck to paycheck." It also called the salaries at America's Test Kitchen "egregiously low" and claimed that several employees had to take second jobs in order to supplement their income. It added that some employees had to lean on family members or partners for financial support. The aim of the letter was to negotiate a new contract with America's Test Kitchen that would include improvements across the company and increase the salary of its employees.

ATK United has called out America's Test Kitchen poor treatment of employees on a number of occasions. Its website includes a "testimonials" section, where former staff list their grievances and negative experiences with the company. Allegations include that staff were given "unrealistic deadlines," that they were "gaslit and devalued," and that they weren't paid " enough to afford to live in Boston," where the company is headquartered.

America's Test Kitchen might have been accused of underpaying its staff, but when it comes to the recipes, reports show the company pays thousands of dollars to perfect them. In fact, according to Dan Souza — the Chief Content Officer at America's Test Kitchen at the time of writing, the former editor in chief of Cook's Illustrated, and one of the America's Test Kitchen TV show's regular cast members — each of the recipes produced by the company costs around $11,000. In 2016, Souza told Vox that this all comes down to the methodical and thorough process that comes with testing recipes.

Each dish on America's Test Kitchen is researched extensively before it is put through its paces in the kitchen. After that, it is given to home cooks for further testing. They then provide feedback before the recipe is posted live. According to Souza, sometimes, it can take cooks 100 different attempts to get a recipe right. In a separate interview with Publisher's Weekly in 2016, the former CEO David Nussbaum said that recipes were tested up to 50 times.

All of this work pays off. According to America's Test Kitchen, some of its most popular recipes of the last few decades include carrot layer cake, shrimp scampi, ragu alla Bolognese, summer berry pie, and cauliflower soup. America's Test Kitchen's intense and scientific testing process ultimately allows the company to describe its recipes as failproof.

America's Test Kitchen makes no secret of the methodical, scientific process that goes into perfecting its recipes. As we've established, a very long testing process takes place before it publishes any of its recipes. Part of this process involves making sure that they are as easy as possible for amateur cooks at home to follow.

Many people appreciate America's Test Kitchen's level of effort. Its shows, for example, have been running for 25 years and currently have around 2 million weekly viewers. The company has also published several best-selling cookbooks, including "The Complete Beans and Grains Cookbook" and "The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook." To celebrate its success, the company has published multiple anniversary cookbooks, too. In 2019, for example, there was America's Test Kitchen released a new book showing off 20 years of obsessive cooking, and in 2024, its 25th anniversary cookbook hit the shelves.

However, not everyone enjoys America's Test Kitchen's approach to cooking. For example, one article published by Salon in 2014 called Cook's Illustrated "the very wonkiest of kitchen authorities" and added that it "takes all of the soul out of cooking." Another post on the blog Amateur Gourmet, published in 2017, accused Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen of "preying" on the "insecurity" of home cooks. It stated that its declaration that its recipes are the "best" takes the creativity out of cooking for many people.

One key part of America's Test Kitchen used to be ATK Kids, which, as the name suggests, was primarily targeted at teaching young children and teens how to cook, as well as showcasing tasty kid-friendly recipes and tips. The content included a YouTube channel, for example, which posted videos like "How to Make Cheeseburger Sliders" and "DIY Fruit Snacks." The company also published cookbooks aimed at children, including "The Complete Cookbook for Teen Chefs" and "The Complete DIY Cookbook for Young Chefs." 

However, in 2023, after it was acquired by Marquee Brands, America's Test Kitchen decided to shut its kids division. This ultimately resulted in the aforementioned layoffs. Most of the employees who were let go were in charge of making content for children. The YouTube channel, which had just under 6,000 subscribers, is still live with all of the previous videos available to stream, but it is no longer being updated with new content. The same goes for the ATK Kids Instagram account, which had amassed nearly 60,000 followers. All of America's Test Kitchen's kid-friendly cookbooks are also still available for consumers to buy.

The main America's Test Kitchen website also hosts a section dedicated to kid- and family-friendly recipes, including Cinnamon-Sugar Monkey Bread and Kids Banana Bread. The shutdown of the division came just one year after America's Test Kitchen partnered with GoNoodle, a children's media platform, to launch a new cooking channel.

In 2020, the world was dealing with a lot. In the midst of the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, there were many lockdowns (which led to plenty of Zoom meetings, quarantine cooking attempts, and panic buying groceries). But alongside all of this, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer sparked protests against racial inequality all over the world. At this time, a number of individuals and companies were called out for a lack of diversity, and America's Test Kitchen was among them. 

Like many brands, Cook's Illustrated posted an acknowledgement on Facebook that it needed to do more to improve its representation of people of color. In the post, it also pledged to introduce "mandatory diversity and inclusion training," as well as increase the representation of people of color in the company by 50% over the course of 18 months. The company also promised to donate money to several organizations dedicated to tackling racial inequality, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, FoodLab Detroit, and the Black Farmer Fund. 

However, in 2022, as mentioned earlier in this list, ATK United again cited a lack of diversity across America's Test Kitchen in its letter to leadership. The union asked America's Test Kitchen to not only focus on hiring a more diverse workforce and leadership team, but to also focus on retaining them, too. 

America's Test Kitchen has faced more than one lawsuit linked to consumer data. In 2019, one consumer proposed class action against America's Test Kitchen and alleged that the company had provided consumer data to data aggregators, which are companies that collect and compile data for businesses and researchers.

The proposed claim also stated that the data — which was allegedly obtained through the consumer's subscription to the Cook's Illustrated magazine — had been sold to list brokers, appenders, and cooperatives. Alongside the data aggregators, these external parties then sold the information to companies, charities, and political organizations that sent junk mail to the consumer's house.

On top of this, the lawsuit also claimed that America's Test Kitchen's treatment of consumer data was putting vulnerable people at risk. This is because elderly people or people with learning disabilities, for example, are more likely to fall foul to telemarketers, who often buy data from major companies.

Fraudulent telemarketers — who can steal data from agencies and brokers — are the worst for targeting seniors. This is because elderly people are less likely to recognize scammers on account of factors like cognitive decline, which makes them more likely to become confused or fall for manipulation tactics. The class action complaint against America's Test Kitchen claims that "an entire black market exists" for the exchange of data of vulnerable Americans. America's Test Kitchen denied the allegations that it made extra money by selling consumer data.

Former employees have accused management of creating a poor working environment at America's Test Kitchen on multiple occasions. For example, one former employee, called Afton Cyrus, told Boston news platform GBH in 2022 that workers often had to work for up to 13 hours a day. This was "without additional compensation."

Another former employee, Andrew Janjigian, who used to work as a senior editor for Cook's Illustrated, said in a statement published on the ATK United website that many workers were consistently underappreciated. He noted that those who were not shown on TV had to "fight for recognition." Janjigian added that he believed the management at America's Test Kitchen was "not interested" in "nurturing or promoting" his talents.

Janjigian's sentiments were echoed by another former editor, who has remained anonymous, but claimed in a testimonial that the infrastructure at America's Test Kitchen was "creatively stifling." Another anonymous editor said that the behavior of upper management had "ruined the shining light that ATK could be."

However, America's Test Kitchen claims that it treats its employees well. In a statement to GBH, the company's spokesperson Brian Franklin said that it was "proud" of its "high employee retention" and noted that America's Test Kitchen's workers have opportunities "to advance in positions of responsibility and compensation."