Bodum USA has recalled about 5.9 million glass-carafe French press coffee makers sold in the United States since 1974. The company has received 70 reports of carafes breaking during use, including 48 reports of burns to consumers, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The fix on offer is a plastic stirring spoon and a warning label, with no refund.
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CPSC announced the action on October 29, 2026, as recall number 27-055. It covers 8-cup and 12-cup presses with replaceable glass carafes in eight named lines. Sales ran through October 2026, which means presses on store shelves this fall are included.
What breaks a damaged carafe, according to CPSC
The agency’s recall notice for the Bodum presses says the glass carafe can break during use if it is damaged or cracked, and it names one trigger directly: stirring with a metal spoon. The hazard it describes is “a risk of serious burn injuries,” because a carafe that fails while full releases near-boiling coffee along with broken glass.
Those are the only mechanics the notice supplies. It does not say how many of the 70 breakages involved a metal spoon, how many involved a crack that predated the incident, or how many of the 48 burns needed medical care. The notice also says nothing about deaths or hospitalizations. It names no individual at CPSC or at Bodum, so the claims rest on the agency’s text and on Bodum USA’s own count of the incidents it received.
Eight model lines and 52 years of sales
The recall names the Bistro, Brazil, Caffettiera, Chambord, Crema, Java, Jesper and Kenya models. The Bodum name appears on the frame and inner lid of most of them and is engraved on the glass carafes together with product warnings. CPSC says the presses were sold from 1974 through October 2026 at Target, Walmart and coffee and home goods stores nationwide, and online at Bodum.com, Amazon.com, Target.com, Walmart.com and other retailers, for about $15 to $65. The eight lines differ in styling and size, yet CPSC lists a single hazard and a single remedy for all of them, and it points owners to the recall website, which carries photos and further model information so that a press can be matched against the list.
Spread across five decades of sales, the numbers shrink. Seventy breakage reports against 5.9 million presses works out to roughly one report for every 84,000 units, and the 48 burns are about two-thirds of the reports. The press itself is a durable design: according to the reference history of the French press, inventors Giulio Moneta and Attilio Calimani patented a version with a sealing spring in the United States in 1929, and Bodum, the Danish housewares company, helped popularize the device across Europe under the Chambord name. Chambord is one of the eight recalled lines.
A plastic spoon and a warning label instead of a refund
CPSC lists the remedy type as a repair, and its instruction is blunt: stop using metal spoons or utensils to stir coffee in the glass carafe immediately. Owners then contact Bodum, which sends a plastic stirring spoon and a warning label. The label tells users not to use cracked or damaged carafes and not to put metal spoons in the carafe. The notice offers no replacement carafe and no money back.
Contact details are 888-879-8213, staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays, an email address at Sedgwick, and the recall website at bodumfrenchpressrecall.expertinquiry.com. Bodum also directs owners to the recall information link on its own company website. The importer is Bodum USA, Inc., of New York, and the presses were made in Portugal and Thailand.
The remedy puts the burden on household habits, and it assumes owners will find and read the label they receive. A plastic spoon cannot repair a hairline crack that already exists, so the label’s instruction not to use cracked or damaged carafes carries as much weight as the spoon itself. How an owner would spot a hairline flaw in clear glass, and whether Bodum will replace a carafe that is found damaged, are questions the notice leaves unanswered.
Bodum’s earlier glass-press recalls in 2014 and 2019
Bodum glass has been recalled before, though not on this scale. In January 2014, recall 14-092 covered about 28,000 rose-gold-framed 8-cup presses sold at Starbucks, after about 14 reports of carafes breaking when the base separated from the frame, with two lacerations and two burns. The fix then was a full refund.
In May 2019, CPSC announced a recall of about 230,000 recycled-material presses co-branded by Starbucks and Bodum, where a plunger knob could break and expose the metal rod, with eight U.S. injury reports and store credit as the remedy. Both earlier products were defective in how they were put together, and both ended in refunds. The 2026 notice describes carafes that fail after damage, including damage from a metal spoon, and the remedy changes accordingly. What remains unexplained is why a hazard on products sold since 1974 reached a formal recall now, and the notice does not answer it.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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