Costco is pulling more than 113,000 Zwilling Enfinigy electric kettles off shelves and out of kitchens across the United States after the Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed that defective handles can detach from the units and dump boiling water on users, a hazard that has already left at least one person with second-degree burns.
The recall covers Enfinigy Kettle 1.5 L and Enfinigy Kettle Pro 1.5 L models sold in black, silver, rose, gold, and white at Costco and HomeGoods stores nationwide. The products were on shelves for years, from September 2019 through November 2025, meaning tens of thousands of households may still have one sitting on a countertop right now.
Zwilling, the German kitchenware brand behind the kettles, has received 163 reports of handles loosening or separating from the body of the kettle. Five of those incidents involved handles that fully detached. One user suffered a second-degree burn. Those are the numbers the company has acknowledged so far. Whether more injuries went unreported remains an open question.
Costco has begun sending letters to members who purchased the affected kettles, telling them to stop using the devices immediately and seek a full refund. Members can return the product to their local Costco warehouse or initiate a return through Zwilling's customer service recall website. Zwilling's site instructs owners to upload a photo of the kettle, cut the power cord, and throw the unit in the trash.
The New York Post reported that the recall covers model numbers 53101-200, 53101-201, 53101-500, 53101-501, 53101-502, 53101-503, and 53101-504. The kettles retailed for between $120 and $200 and were also sold online through zwilling.com from December 2019 through February 2026.
An additional 43,000 units were sold in Canada and Mexico, widening the scope of the recall beyond U.S. borders.
A Costco representative did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment on the matter.
This is not the first time Costco shoppers have had to check their pantries, or their closets, for recalled products in recent months. Just two months ago, the warehouse retailer recalled a popular meatloaf and mashed potatoes kit sold in nearly 20 states after Griffith Foods flagged a potential contamination in one of the ingredients. Those products had been sold at 26 Costco locations, with sales concentrated in early March.
Before that, Costco recalled nearly 208,000 pairs of heated socks after customers reported first- and second-degree burns from the product, a strikingly similar pattern of a consumer item causing thermal injuries that should never have reached the sales floor.
And the recall wave is not limited to Costco. Just this week, Kroger pulled a popular salad item from shelves after the FDA issued a warning that an ingredient in the product may be contaminated with salmonella.
The United States sees more than 6,000 product recalls per year across industries. That sheer volume can numb consumers to the urgency of individual alerts. But a kettle that dumps boiling water on your hand is not a paperwork technicality. It is a serious safety failure.
One detail in this recall deserves a closer look: the timeline. The Zwilling Enfinigy kettles were sold continuously from September 2019 through late 2025, more than six years. During that window, 163 handle problems were reported to the manufacturer. The question consumers should be asking is why it took this long for the recall to happen.
Product safety regulators exist precisely to catch these problems before someone gets hurt. The Consumer Product Safety Commission published the recall announcement confirming the second-degree burn. But the commission has not disclosed when it first became aware of the handle defect or how many of the 163 reports predated the injury.
The USDA's recent warning to Costco shoppers in Maryland and New Jersey about mislabeled ravioli with undeclared shellfish is another reminder that the system often catches problems only after products have already reached consumers' homes. In a marketplace that moves billions of units per year, the recall process is inherently reactive. The question is whether it is reactive enough.
Costco told members they can bring the kettle back to any warehouse for a full refund. Alternatively, Zwilling's dedicated recall website walks owners through the process: upload a photo of the affected unit, sever the power cord, and dispose of the kettle. A full refund follows.
The $120-to-$200 price tag on these kettles means many households will want to follow through. But the disposal instructions, cut the cord and throw it away, also mean there will be no centralized collection of defective units for analysis. Once the cord is cut, the evidence is in a landfill.
Consumers who purchased the kettle online through zwilling.com face the same recall terms. Whether Zwilling will provide any additional accounting of how the handle defect occurred, or which production batches were most affected, remains unclear. The specific model numbers are public, but no batch identifiers or SKU-level detail have been released.
The broader recall environment continues to test shoppers' patience. A recent nationwide recall of Fly By Jing's Creamy Sesame Noodles over hidden peanut contamination and a separate recall of nearly 9,500 pounds of Rosina frozen meatballs over metal contamination underscore just how many products slip through quality controls before reaching kitchen tables.
Costco has built its brand on trust. Members pay annual fees for the privilege of shopping there, and they expect the products on those warehouse shelves to be safe. When a kettle handle falls off and pours boiling water on a customer, that trust takes a hit, and a form letter telling people to cut a cord and throw the thing away is not the same as a full explanation.
Zwilling, for its part, collected 163 reports of a handle defect on a product designed to hold boiling liquid. At some point between report number one and report number 163, someone inside that company had to weigh the cost of a recall against the cost of doing nothing. The burn victim who ended up with a second-degree injury is living proof of how that calculation played out.
Consumers deserve to know how long manufacturers and retailers sat on complaint data before acting. They deserve to know whether the Consumer Product Safety Commission moved with appropriate speed or whether bureaucratic delay let a known hazard linger on shelves for years. And they deserve straight answers, not just a refund link.
When the people who sell you a kettle can't guarantee the handle stays attached, the least they owe you is an honest accounting of what went wrong and when they knew about it.