America’s Test Kitchen’s mission is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Since 1992, we have strived to fulfill that mission by earning the trust of customers with rigorous, objective testing of recipes, equipment and ingredients, and best-in-class cooking tips and techniques. Trust is the foundation of our relationship with ATK home cooks, and all of us at ATK work every day to ensure that we earn and preserve that trust.
While our mission has remained the same for more than three decades, our business evolves constantly. Launched first as a magazine (Cook’s Illustrated), ATK now reaches home cooks in a multitude of ways, including TV and streaming, websites and apps, social media, magazines and cookbooks, podcasts, and more. We tailor our approaches to each of those platforms to best serve home cooks, and we follow best business practices for each of those platforms in order to support our mission.
Transparency in how we operate is a crucial component of our promise, and to that end, following is an overview of our editorial standards and business practices. A lot has changed in three decades, but our commitment to impartial testing to inform our recipes, reviews, and work remains steadfast.
How America’s Test Kitchen Supports Its Mission
Sources of revenue to support ATK’s mission include digital subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, book sales, content licensing, and other areas such as partnerships and affiliate revenue. We do not run advertising in Cook’s Illustrated magazine, and we do not run display advertising on AmericasTestKitchen.com or in the ATK App.
Our two shows on PBS (America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country) rely on underwriting—the longstanding PBS model whereby programming is funded by third parties in exchange for on-air acknowledgements governed by the PBS National Program Funding and Standards Practices. For more than two decades our shows have featured underwriting, a necessary source of revenue given that PBS does not pay a production fee to ATK.
Most streaming and social media platforms on which ATK distributes content are ad-supported. We launched the America’s Test Kitchen YouTube channel in 2007, and in recent years, we launched Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) channels (America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country) on streaming platforms such as The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, and Prime Video. We have accounts on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, X and Pinterest. We run advertising on our podcasts such as Proof and In The Test Kitchen.
Ultimately, underwriting and ad-supported platforms enable us to offer our video and audio content—hundreds of new episodes each year—to millions of home cooks for free.
How ATK Reviews Maintains Editorial Independence
The mission of the ATK Reviews Team is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We are meticulous and relentless in our pursuit. For each review, we spend days or weeks running exhaustive side-by-side evaluations in our testing lab—and that is just the beginning of our process. We cut things open, we look at them under microscopes, and we send them to labs for scientific analysis. We also consult with academic researchers and industry experts so that we can better understand why different pieces of equipment perform the way they do. We answer the question of not just what but also how and why.
We operate with editorial independence and follow a strict set of editorial standards that ensure that the actions taken by the ATK Reviews Team and by employees on our company’s business teams do not jeopardize the objectivity or reliability of our reviews.
Commitment to Objectivity
As objective testers, our editorial integrity is paramount. We never accept free products, samples, or prototypes; for all reviews, we purchase our own products at retail prices. It’s a significant financial investment that allows us to remain honest and objective. It also ensures that we test the same products that consumers are able to purchase and not a prototype with different features, functionality, and/or performance.
We do not do sponsored reviews. All products reviewed by America’s Test Kitchen are independently chosen, researched, and reviewed by the members of the ATK Reviews Team. Manufacturers cannot pay us to review their products. They also cannot opt out of inclusion in our reviews. Our editors are the sole deciders on what we test and when.
When a product fails to meet our standards, we won’t sugarcoat it or scrub that item from the record. We always include both the top performers and the bottom-ranked products in our reviews and explain in precise, concise terms why they succeeded or failed, respectively. We share details of our testing methodology in each review—including the tests and our rating criteria—so that it’s clear how we came to our conclusions.
No Free and Unsolicited Products
All members of the ATK Reviews Team are prohibited from accepting free items from manufacturers and marketing or PR companies. Unsolicited products and swag in press kits must be returned to the sender or donated to a local charitable organization.
Our team attends a select number of trade shows each year to learn about industry trends. However, we are prohibited from attending demos, trips, gatherings, and tours hosted solely by product manufacturers for members of the media. All travel for research purposes must be paid for in full by America’s Test Kitchen.
How ATK Maintains Editorial Independence Around Affiliate Revenue
As mentioned above, our reviews team members operate with complete editorial independence and are focused on providing objective test results based on hands-on testing. After a review is completed by the reviews team, we will provide suggested sources for recommended products cited in the review as a convenience to our readers. If a subscriber chooses to purchase the products from any links that we provide, America’s Test Kitchen may earn an affiliate commission. The program is managed by our business team, which is the point of contact with any platforms offering commissions. The reviews team is not informed of affiliate terms or rates.
How ATK Partners with Brands
ATK partners with brands in various ways while still maintaining the editorial independence that has earned ATK the trust of its subscribers for years:
Video Sponsorships
ATK partners with brands on select video sponsorships on social media platforms (e.g. Instagram, TikTok) and YouTube and identifies all such videos as sponsored content, per platform guidelines.
Members of the ATK Reviews Team are not informed of the terms of any potential partnership, nor do those partnerships affect our testing results. We retain our ability to review products and to share our honest assessments. We follow strict guidelines depending upon the type of video:
- If a video features equipment or ingredients the reviews team has previously tested, the product featured must have earned a Highly Recommended or Recommended rating before it can be considered for sponsorship. We do not film sponsored videos for products that did not earn our approval during our independent testing process. Select members of the reviews team will appear in these videos, and the videos are designed to inform viewers as to why ATK recommended the equipment or ingredient.
- If a video features equipment that is new to the market and the reviews team has not seen or tested it yet, our reviews team members will provide off-the-cuff assessments and their initial impressions of the product. Both in the audio and in the caption, ATK will clarify that the talent has not tested the product and is not making an official recommendation. Our team may or may not review that item, and any eventual review must abide by our established editorial standards.
- If a video features the use of equipment or ingredients by ATK talent not on the reviews team, such as a test cook or editor, the product featured must have earned a Highly Recommended or Recommended rating before it can be considered for sponsorship. The talent may highlight why they like the featured item but will not speak to tests performed by the reviews team.
- Finally, a video may feature the use of a service or brand by ATK talent not on the reviews team, such as a test cook or editor. Equipment and/or ingredients in any category that the ATK Reviews Team tests are not eligible to be featured in this type of sponsored video. The talent may highlight why they like the service or brand.
Accolades Program
ATK launched its Accolades program in 2022. If a product earns a Highly Recommended or Recommended rating in our tests, the manufacturer has the opportunity to promote that recognition of their product on digital, social media, e-commerce and other platforms. Partners license the use of the ATK Recommended badge and other ATK intellectual property. Our business team manages the program exclusively (we no longer use a third-party agency to handle), and the reviews team has no involvement in the program.
Do you have a question about our editorial and business standards? Please let us know. Send us an email at standards@americastestkitchen.com.