Love it electronguru. Exactly right about engineers!

Totally agree with the way Americans cook  or rather don't cook. I do believe there will be more publicity and exposure with the TM5 in the US where it is not well known. Could even appear on Chefy shows like MasterChef and no doubt celebrity chefs doing their thing as the machine is in many restaurants .

It will be very interesting to see what happens and if it takes off with the good cooks in American homes.

Gert

Oh I do so hope Vorwerk will Sell the TM5 in the US. I miss having a tmx desperately. I think the major obstacle is the measurement issue, ie metric versus imperial. When I first got here (temporarily living in the US after relocating from Australia) I was asking for 200 grams of this or that and shop assistants looked set me blankly.  The non- use of metric is a huge hurdle to overcome. I'm constantly having to convert in my head, mikes to Kms, hrsms to ounce, Fahrenheit yo Celsius etc.

I see the hardest thing for Thermomix  getting into the US is the fact that Americans still use the imperial measuring system while the rest of the world is metric.
With the scales measuring in grams, some Americans will find that a stumbling block.

I've been giving these questions some thought. How would a successful US launch of the Thermomix look?

Measurement units are important and Americans will freak at grams and celsius. But the US is also a huge market. They already made a version just for Canada. A model with ounces and fahrenheit and the 110v the Canadian version already has, is a necessary no brainer. The challenge would come with recipes on the Internet. So ideally, the new digital version can be configured for either or both and easily translate between them.  

The history of our processed food obsession goes back to WWII. We needed to get edible food (lots of it) all over the place and it needed to be stable for weeks and months. The government hired companies to come up with processes that would achieve that. And through the war, they got really good at it and got really big selling it. After the war, their built in market disappeared so they went about creating a new market. They went about teaching us how to eat faster, eat instant. First they took over the shelves and freezers of grocery stores. Then they took over the shelves and freezers of restaurants. Today, its a rare American who doesn't eat something that was dried or frozen at least part of every day. And for many, its every meal, perhaps the entire meal.

So there's huge need for such an appliance here. But how will the people who can benefit most, know that Thermomix is the answer? It costs 3-4x that of the highest cost general use countertop appliance here. To get Americans to pony up, Vorwerk needs to show why its better than everything they already have, why it won't end up collecting dust in the corner along with the last 5 appliances they bought. And Americans are very intuition based. So adding to the challenge is that the Thermomix looks like a fancy blender. Breaking through the noise and objections, will require something like this:

Old fashioned
video showing the old process (lots of time and work) with the old results (healthy and tasty)
long list of steps and time per step and huge total minutes, showing knives and pans
long list of benefits, including fiber
short list of sugar / salt / transfats

New fashioned
video showing the new process (little time or work) with the new results (unhealthy and bland)
short list of steps and time per step with tiny total minutes, showing plastic and microwaves
short list of benefits
long list of sugar / salt / transfats

Thermomix fashioned
video showing the TM process (little time or work) with the new TM result (healthy and tasty)
short list of steps and time per step with tiny total minutes
long list of benefits, including fiber
short list of sugar / salt / transfats

Thermomix: old fashioned health at new fashioned speed

I will be interested to see how the Americans take to it when it is introduced once again in the US. No doubt that will coincide with the new model going into Canada. This forum will be overloaded with US members for sure. It is going to get interesting.

I'm in the US and imported my TM31 several years ago. Speaking for us as a group...

The largest obstacle will be the price. We have huge kitchens and are happy to have 3-4 primary appliances, costing $100-300 each plus multiple small appliances. We may not see the value of a single do everything device to replace them.

That said, we are also terrible eaters who are in a hurry and eat a lot of heavily processed food. If Vorwerk can effectively communicate the 'speedy from scratch' benefits, it stands a good chance of catching a foot hold. We can feel our unhealthy food in our bones but also don't have the time to do it right with pots and pans.

But few in the states have even heard of such devices beyond high powered (cold) blenders like the Vitamix. And these are near exclusive to smoothies. When i mentioned it to my sister, for example, she said her blender could already do it, since the friction with the blades generated its own heat. So short of a publicity blitz, the rollout/absorption will be slow.

The interesting bit will be the new auto/guided functions. As a techie who can't cook, the hardest thing getting started with my 31 (absent any local guidance) was learning the food prep sequencing. If the version 5 can streamline the user experience (make it more fire and forget), adoption will be faster/easier.


BTW, speaking as a business owner who works with a lot of engineers (making flashlights), the 'blunder' is classic engineer thinking. This is bad because engineers are in charge and they don't intuit human behavior but it's also good because engineers are in charge, so we're always going to get a good product.

Were I running things, I would have stopped 31 production a few months earlier and let supplies dry up. That alone would have created anticipation, without hurting customers or their image or shown their cards to copy cats. And lost sales would be made up with a demand surge for the new model.

Newsstand is a dedicated app for reading magazines and other periodicals, purchased via Newsstand and iTunes.  Magazines purchased on one device, can be downloaded to other devices (of the same or other sizes), when attached to the same account.  Just find the restore purchases button inside a given magazine.

iBooks is a dedicated app for reading books purchased via iBooks and iTunes.  Books purchased on one device, can be downloaded to other devices (of the same or other sizes), when attached to the same account.  Just see the purchase tab.  This can be automated under settings > iTunes preferences.

Dedicated apps are trickier and depend heavily on how they were written and released.  This is up to the individual developer and not apple.  Apps with both phone and pad code are purchased once and work for both.  Phone apps can be downloaded onto pads (with phone resolution) from the same account.  Pad only apps cannot be downloaded to phones.  Any easy way to see all versions at once is to scroll down to 'developer apps' on the first screen of one of the apps, in the App Store app.

When a developer releases separate versions, they must be purchased separately, even if they have the same content (say recipes).  When searching in the App Store from a pad, note whether the first tab is set to 'iphone only' or 'iPad only'.  This will determine which group you see.  Apps without a price are already owned by your account and can be downloaded freely.  Apps with a price that you 'should' already own, indicate another version format.

Thanks!

Our favorite thing is a sun dried tomato marinara sauce the Mrs came up with.  We also do lots of mashed potatoes, vegetable soups, and hard boiled eggs.  The mashed potato technique was a hit over thanksgiving for sweet potatoes.

Deserts include chocolate chip cookie dough, (tempered) chocolate dipped fruit, and snow (used with various syrups).

BTW, we just got a Breville Oven to go with it.  It does a pretty good poached egg, so I was looking for a hollandaise sauce receipt for use with the TM and landed on a forumthermomix thread.

BBTW, having inquired with TM HQ when shopping, I was contacted recently by them about a possible US sales effort.

Had our Thermo since 2 winters ago, having imported it from Canada.

Looking forward to reading and posting with this new community!