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Ikea’s “Blanda Blank” serving bowl is in many ways a multipurpose kitchen staple with many benefits: It’s affordable, it’s useful, and its sleek stainless steel design fits in with most kitchen decor. However on the flip side, it also might casually set your food on fire.
An unsuspecting Swedish man found this out the hard way when, while enjoying grapes out of the 11” mixing bowl, as one does, he started to smell smoke. “I saw it was burning in the grape bowl. How is that possible, I thought. Then I saw there was one intense point where (the sun) hit the twigs, and that’s where it started,” said Richard Walter, the victim of this fruity tragedy.
The reason behind the spontaneous smoke? Walter had elected to snack outside during a particularly hot weekend, and apparently the structure of the bowl is such that coupled with strong direct sunlight, it concentrates heat to one specific point. Lest anyone think the burning grapes were an isolated incident, Walter took to Facebook to share a video of him also burning a piece of paper in the bowl. Ikea is investigating.
“We take this information very seriously and will now investigate what happened,” said Emil Eriksson, an Ikea spokesperson, to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
But before you start throwing out your Blanda bowls in the name of food safety, know that the risk of a fire starting is relatively low.
“In risk assessment for the bowl Blanda, it has been established that many different parameters would have to converge for the content of the bowl to overheat and that the risk for this to happen is very low,” added Eriksson in a written statement to The Local on June 21. “The round design of the bowl further contributes to a very low risk of spreading, in case of any overheated material in the bowl.”
Willing to risk charred fruit? The Blanda bowl is still available on ikea.com for $4.99. Just remember to prep (and consume) your food inside for the time being.
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