FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

REVOLUTIONARY DESIGN FOR FISHER & PAYKEL’S
NEW ‘GAS IN GLASS’ COOKTOP

April 2006

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA – Another world-first for Fisher & Paykel – this time the innovative appliance company has created a cooktop with a difference.

Fisher & Paykel is calling it “Project Luna™”. A frameless piece of 36 by 16 inch black glass supports three individual gas burners, but when this revolutionary cooktop is not in use, the pan supports and burners retract flush into the ceramic glass surface. As if by magic, a simple push of the intuitive knob awakens the appliance, lifting the pan supports and burners into place while a turn of the dial instantly ignites the gas ready for cooking.

There is nothing else even remotely like it on the market at present - the innovative lifting and retraction of the gas burners and pan supports make this product unique and a world-first in cooking appliances.

“Gas within frameless ceramic glass in itself represents state-of-the-art design, but the addition of the ‘now you see it – now you don’t’ burner and pan supports make this product unique in the true sense of the word”, says Fisher & Paykel’s VP Sales & Marketing, Laurence Mawhinney.

“The launch of this product will invigorate the retail cooking category and give consumers of new technology and high-impact visually distinctive appliances reason to rejoice. Even its size is unique - long, narrow and sleek - the frameless black glass looks sensational set into a stone or Corian® bench,” said Mawhinney.

But looks aside, this extraordinary cooktop also performs beyond expectation – Fisher & Paykel’s unique Aero™ burners offer precise linear flame control and glow ignition. This equates to spark-less ignition and instantaneous flame.

“The patented ‘Aero™’ burners ensure even heat distribution with powerful high settings for wok stir frying and incredibly low turndown, which in application terms means that at its lowest settings, this cooktop will melt chocolate in a pan placed directly on the gas. This is exceptional for a gas cooktop – ordinarily the chocolate would need to be placed in a pot over a water-bath to ensure it didn’t burn,” continued Mawhinney.

“Cleaning is effortless as when the cooktop isn’t in use, the burners and supports are hidden beneath. This flat, obstacle-free surface is easily wiped clean. The pan support pins are removable for ease of cleaning, although specially formulated seals around the pins ensure that liquid and cooking overspills are unable to leak into the pan support cavities.

“Unlike most conventional 36-inch cooktops, our new Luna ‘gas in glass’ cooktop fields only three gas cooking burners. This differs substantially from most 36-inch cooktops, which offer four or five burners. We designed the new cooktop with only three as our research showed that at any one time only 2.1 burners were ever in use. The reduction in burners allowed for this streamlined, narrow and strikingly attractive design,” said Mawhinney.

“Also, the alignment of the three burners in a row is ergonomically superior, as the user isn’t required to reach to the back burners,” he said.

However, for those scribbling this new cooktop onto their wish-list, a word of advice – unfortunately – as this product is a ‘project’. With prototypes undergoing rigorous testing and regulatory approvals, the company has no release date confirmed at this point. The company plans to announce a release date once production dates are finalized.

Press contact:
Scott Davies
949-790-8900
scott.davies@fisherpaykel.com

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