Vitamix - FoodCycler® FC-50 - Composts Food in 4-8 Hours

I’m a cook and there’s some waste involved. I have an outdoor composter but I live in the desert and honestly I’m not inclined to rush out in 100 degree days to add another layer and spin it around. I tend to use my outdoor composter more for lawn clippings and leaves than kitchen scraps. This thing works like a dream. It is amazing how orange rinds and broccoli shreds and unused greens are reduced to...well...kind of dry shavings. I put everything veg and fruit in there, lightly chopped or torn up...no pits. One caveat I had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year and towards the end just couldn’t keep up with it. A few tomatoes mixed with other things is no problem but too many tomatoes is too juicy and may wind up gummy instead of dry even with a second run. A little bucket soak though and good to go. I love not wasting anything.

Wow! This Vitamix Foodcycler is amazing. You can put virtually any leftover/throw-out food in the bin and it will process it into dehydrated broken down particles as small as wood shavings to flakes as large as a silver dollar. We get different results every time. We throw almost everything in here. Be careful with other types of bones, but we put left over chicken bones in here from making chicken noodle soup and it handled it just fine. We used about 1/4 of the chicken bones, bones we didn’t think were too thick. We may try the whole chicken next time. We leave our bucket out in our kitchen and it blends well without being noticed due it’s dark Matte black gunmetal color. We put the provided filter cover over it and it prevents it from attracting bugs. We throw food in there until it’s at or a tiny bit over the max fill threshold until we start it. Sometimes it takes two or three days for us to fill it. That filter cover keep any mild-medium smells, in that bucket during that time. Also, it’s waaay quieter than the average dishwasher. The only time it’s ever louder, is with bones To product designers. (Flaws) - The inside arrows are not easy to find to align the metal bucket into the housing. - The very first time we washed the metal bucket that you claim is dishwasher safe, the gears on the bottom developed surface rust. We were able to get it off, but because of this we recommend that this should be hand washed and not put in a dishwasher.

I am amazed of how great this product is and all the great pros by using it. Package said.. 1000 pounds per year per household are being diverted from landfills by just using this. I CAN NOT RECOMMEND IT MORE! I can't wait to start sharing my homemade fertilizer with my neighbors!

This is awesome! We use it every night and recycle our food scraps into tillable garden material. Does what it says: keeps food waste out of landfills. Video of my Vitamix Food Cycler in action at https://youtu.be/BdkWPU4fAEA

I am an employee of Best Buy and had the opportunity to use the FoodCycler in my home. I’ve always been intimidated by composting. I live in an urban setting, which means I have a small yard and kitchen. For years I’ve written off composting as too hard, too smelly and too time consuming. But lately I’ve read more about the environmental impact of throwing out food, and I’ve been really bothered about the amount of food we waste in my household. So, for my family, FoodCycler has been a game changing. We set it up near our garbage cans in the kitchen and throw our food scraps in there throughout the day. There are two things that really stand out to me. First, we can throw anything in – chicken bones, coffee grounds, peanut butter & jelly, etc. – so it’s easy. Second, it doesn’t smell, and with a small kitchen that was a major reason I didn’t compost in the past. We generally run the FoodCycler at night since it’s quiet, and the next day we use the fertilizer it produces on our plants in the house and yard. I would recommend this product for anybody who is looking for an easy way to make composting a part of their daily routine.

This is a rather expensive, but ultra-convenient, kitchen appliance. Over the last couple of weeks I used it roughly every other day. It neatly takes food scraps and breaks them down to a dry compost if used as directed. On one experiment I weighed the scraps before and after. The heavy-duty bucket weighs 3lbs. 8.3oz. and when I filled it to the "fill line" it jumped to 6lbs. 10.8oz. Then, close the lid, hit start and wait. 8 hours later, it had reduced a full bucket to 4.5oz of dry compost. (see photos) The dry compost can be collected and sprinkled on your garden as fertilizer as needed. There are some cons, however. First, the price is steep at $399, but it does go on sale periodically. Second, it says the cycle is 4 to 8 hours, but every cycle I ran was around 8 hours so I let it run over night. Third, it does smell when working and when you open to collect it. It is not terrible, but I moved it out of the kitchen because it was noticeable. Lastly, its size. It takes up a lot of kitchen space and if you live in an apartment it will eat up counter space, but in my case it was twice the size of my previous compost bucket which I now use to collect the dry scraps.

I am an employee of Best Buy and have had the opportunity to use the FoodCycler in my home. We have been composting for a few years, but living in the city, the process has been cumbersome. We’d keep a small bucket on our counter, which we’d fill up, take to a larger container in the garage and then every few weeks would haul to our city drop off site. While I hate to admit it, we’d sometimes throw out food scraps because the containers would be full or too stinky and we knew we wouldn’t be doing a trip for a bit. Using the FoodCycler has been amazing! I cook almost every night which means we fill it up and run it almost every day. I am honestly shocked how much our waste has gone down as I have started composting things I usually didn’t because of the smell (meat, bones, cooked scraps). I noticed very quickly we were not filling up the trash as rapidly and was surprised by how much a full pail of scraps can be reduced to a small amount of fertilizer. The size is perfect for fitting under my cabinets on my counter top since we are constantly using it. It’s just slightly bigger than our coffee maker. Depending on how much you fill it up, and what items are in it, the time it takes to run can vary, but each time it’s done, everything is thoroughly broken down and dried out so you can be confident it’s not just operating on a flat timer with mixed results. The pail is also incredibly easy to clean. Although dishwasher safe, I have just been running it with hot water and soap between cycles and it rinses clean. Much better than my previous counter container which I never felt was clean enough! I can’t recommend this enough for anyone that’s been considering trying to reduce their food waste, but doesn’t want to deal with traditionally stinky or cumbersome compost methods. You will be a compost convert in no time! I’m excited to use my compost in my garden this spring!

This thing is great for a small household (it's just me and my partner). It's basically enough space for a day's worth of scraps, small bones, paper plates, paper towels, etc. I used to have a compost pickup service before I moved out to a rural area that is somehow both 5 miles from the big compost facility and also impossible to get service for. I've had terrible luck with vermicomposting, barrel composting, and others. I have a total black thumb, and it apparently extends to making beautiful soil amendments from scraps. So when I saw this for sale pricing, I snatched it up. Even at regular pricing it's cheaper than a year's worth of compost pickup service. Another bonus--home compost heaps don't produce enough heat to break down animal proteins, but this will do the trick just fine with most animal products. Just don't throw in hambones and you'll be fine. Small chicken bones and such work great. Animal fats and oils are not overt problem (though may affect the sodium content of your compost). Works great. One cycle is about 4-8 hours generally. The more liquid you put into the inner bucket with your scraps, the longer it takes. So my first cycle, which was some damp paper towels and vegetable scraps and dry food waste took less than 4, but my most recent cycle which included some spoiled liquid took about 12 hours. Produces ZERO odor so far, but does sound a little like a spaceship while it's running. Because of the moderate noise (I guess about the level of a loud home dishwasher) and the footprint (about the size of a home bread machine), I keep it in my garage. Produces an end product that looks like shredded paper pulp (even when there's no paper included), and you're supposed to cure it for a while and add into your soil at a ratio I can't recall off the top of my head (I think 1:10 compost:soil?). So I have a 5 gallon bucket I'm emptying the finished pulp into. With the lid closed, it's critter proof and no odor. Really deeply grateful for this product, and happy to be able to properly compost again!