ProCook, read closely: honest steel and cast iron, sold beside a price comparison it wrote itself

In a sentence or two

Yes, for the right things. ProCook designs and sells its own pans, knives and tableware, cutting out the department store, and its uncoated stainless steel and enamelled cast iron carry twenty-five-year guarantees that are among the longest on the high street.³ Its non-stick pans attract most of the complaints, and the guarantee explicitly excludes the scratches and wear that end a non-stick pan’s life. Buy the heavy, uncoated things here. Buy the coated ones with your eyes open, or elsewhere.

Points in favour

The business model is the argument. ProCook makes nothing for anyone else and sells nothing made by anyone else, so every pan on the shelf is its own design, sold through its own website and what the product pages describe as eighty shops of its own.⁴ That has two consequences a buyer can feel. The prices sit well below the heritage names for comparable specifications, and the staff in the shops know the range because it is the only range there is. The reviews, read in quantity, praise the shop assistants with a regularity that is almost suspicious, until one remembers how rare it is to find anyone in a cookware department who can explain what tri-ply means.

It is a document written by people who expect claims, which is more reassuring than one written by people who do not.

The second thing is the guarantee, which on the right products is long and specific. The Professional Stainless Steel range carries twenty-five years, goes in the dishwasher and the oven to 260C, and works on every hob including induction.⁴ The enamelled cast iron casseroles carry the same twenty-five years. The guarantees page sets out the terms plainly, including the useful clause that if a range is discontinued you will be offered something of similar quality, and that a faulty piece from a set is replaced individually.³ It is a document written by people who expect claims, which is more reassuring than one written by people who do not.

The product pages also deserve credit for candour, which is not a word one often uses about retail copy. The stainless steel page warns that handles get hot, that you will need more oil than with non-stick, and that low-fat cooking sprays can bond to the surface in a film that is very difficult to remove.⁴ It even warns that induction hobs can run so hot they damage a pan, and that a scratched hob is not ProCook’s problem. This is the sort of advice a good kitchen shop gives across the counter, and it is printed where the buyer will actually see it.

Reservations

Start with the price comparison. Each product page explains that ProCook’s goods are up to half the price of similar products from leading brands, and that it calls this comparison the typical price.⁴ It is a figure ProCook constructs itself, against products it does not name, for goods that, by its own description, are sold nowhere else. That does not make the prices high, and on the steel and cast iron they are not. But it does mean the struck-through number is a piece of rhetoric rather than a market price, and the near-permanent percentage-off offers in the banner should be read with that in mind.

Then the non-stick. The lowest-rated reviews return again and again to coated pans that stop being non-stick far sooner than buyers expected, even when the care instructions were followed. One reviewer, writing this month, described exchanging one coated set for another and watching the replacement fail the same way.⁵ The guarantee does not help much here, because it excludes wear and tear, scratches, discolouration and damage from overheating, which together describe most of the ways a non-stick coating dies.³ A long guarantee on a coated pan is therefore a promise about the pan underneath rather than the surface you actually cook on.

Returns are less generous than the shop’s friendly manner suggests. The window is thirty days from the date of purchase rather than delivery, items must be unused and in their original packaging, and postage back is at the customer’s expense unless you walk the parcel into a shop.² The delivery page, meanwhile, cannot quite agree with itself: it lists standard delivery as three to seven days in one place and two to five in another, and gives different cut-off times for next-day orders from the ones printed on the product pages.¹ None of this is sinister. It is simply untidy, and worth knowing before you rely on a date.

Line by line

Professional Stainless Steel cookware Our choice This is the range we would send a reader to first. Uncoated stainless steel has nothing to wear off, so the twenty-five-year guarantee means something, and the specification is sensible: induction-ready, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe to 260C with lids to a lower temperature.⁴ The page is frank that uncoated pans need more oil and some technique, and that the handles heat up in the oven or over a big gas flame. That is the real weakness: anyone moving from non-stick will burn a few eggs before learning to preheat properly. A few pieces in the range do carry a non-stick coating, so check which ones you are buying if the point was to avoid one.

Enamelled cast iron casseroles Our choice ProCook’s casseroles come in burgundy, ice blue, thyme green and a white snowflake design for Christmas, and they do the job of the famous French ones for a fraction of the outlay. They are enamelled inside and out, so need no seasoning, go on every hob including solid fuel, and carry twenty-five years of guarantee.⁴ The weakness is the one all cast iron shares, stated without fuss on the page: the 28cm shallow casserole weighs over five kilograms empty. Hand washing is recommended, the dishwasher may dull the enamel, and the exposed rim wants oiling. It is a lifetime pot for anyone who can lift it.

Professional X50 knives Also considered The Professional X50 sets use German X50 stainless steel, the workhorse alloy of the European kitchen, in acacia, steel or magnetic blocks, and with green and navy handles for those who want their knives to match the kettle.⁴ They are sound, forgiving knives at a fair price. They are not exotic: X50 is tough rather than hard, which means it shrugs off abuse and needs honing more often than the Elite AUS10 knives alongside it, which use a harder Japanese steel. Note too that knife orders require age verification before dispatch, which can quietly scupper a next-day delivery ordered at the last minute as a present.¹

Madeira and Oslo stoneware dinner sets Also considered ProCook’s tableware is a newer, smaller side of the shop, and the Madeira sets are the prettiest of it: a double reactive glaze in linen stone, midnight blue or sage mist, with the deliberate variation that is now fashionable on every dresser. The specification is where it falls short of the cookware. The guarantee is one year, not twenty-five, and the plates are oven-safe only to 120C, which is plate-warming rather than cooking.⁴ The plainer Oslo stoneware is the safer buy for daily use. Neither is an heirloom, and neither pretends to be.

Coated non-stick pans Not for us Not because ProCook’s coatings are uniquely bad (every non-stick pan is a consumable), but because the shop’s main selling point does not apply to them. The guarantee excludes the scratches, staining, discolouration and overheating that finish non-stick off, and the complaints in the one-star reviews cluster here more than anywhere else in the range.³ A long guarantee badge on a coated pan invites a confidence the small print withdraws. If you want non-stick, buy one modest frying pan and treat it as a two- or three-year purchase; for everything else, use the stainless steel.

Buying from them

ProCook sells online and through its own shops, and the two are reasonably joined up: anything bought online can be returned to any ProCook shop, which avoids the return postage charge that otherwise falls on the customer.² Delivery is free above a modest threshold for the standard and pickup-point services, with paid premium and named-day options through DPD, which now asks for a four-digit PIN at the door; without it the driver will rebook for the next day.¹ The site ships only to the UK, including Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, with an extra day for remote addresses. Faulty goods cannot go through the online returns portal; you telephone or email, with photographs if possible.³ The Trustpilot profile is very large and very positive, though the company invites every customer to review and pays for the service, which flatters any score.⁵ The shop staff draw the warmest praise, and refund processing, quoted at about fourteen working days once the parcel arrives, draws the coolest.²

The Journal's verdict

ProCook is at its best selling heavy things that do not wear out: uncoated steel pans, enamelled cast iron, a decent block of knives. On those it offers a long guarantee, a fair price and a shop assistant who knows the difference between bi-ply and tri-ply. It is weaker on non-stick, where the guarantee is mostly decoration, and on tableware, where it is a newcomer with a one-year promise. Ignore the typical price; judge the actual one. Our recommendation: buy the Professional Stainless Steel and a cast iron casserole from ProCook, and shop around for anything coated.

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Others to consider

Footnotes

1. ProCook Delivery and Tracking page, read October 2026: standard delivery or pickup point £4.95, free over £60; premium DPD £6.95 (£4.95 over £60); named day £7.95 (£5.95 over £60). Standard listed as both 3-7 and 2-5 days; next-day cut-offs given as 6pm and 3pm (7pm on product pages). Knife orders need age verification.↩
2. ProCook returns page, read October 2026: 30 days from date of purchase, unused and in original packaging; return postage paid by customer (£4.95 drop-off, £6.95 collection) unless returned to a shop; refunds processed in about 14 working days; outlet purchases (The O2, Spalding) return to the outlet only.↩
3. ProCook Guarantees page, read October 2026: minimum 12 months, many products 10 or 25 years; excludes wear and tear, commercial use, accident, misuse, discolouration, scratches, stains and overheating; discontinued ranges replaced with similar quality; set items replaced individually.↩
4. ProCook product pages read October 2026: Professional Stainless Steel Cookware Set (25 years, oven 260C, lids 220C); Cast Iron Casserole 28cm shallow (25 years, 5.2kg); Madeira Reactive Glaze 16-piece set (1 year, oven 120C); Professional X50 Chef Acacia Knife Block; the ‘typical price’ explanation and the eighty-store figure.↩
5. Trustpilot profile for www.procook.co.uk, read October 2026, including the one-star filter: around 190,000 reviews, rated Excellent; the profile notes the company invites all customers to review and has a paid subscription. Non-stick durability complaints recurrent among recent one-star reviews.↩

Filed under the Table desk