REVIEW -I have a love/hate relationship with composting. I love having compost for my garden, but I keep getting off the composting train because it’s gross. In the flimsy little can the city gave us I’d get mold, bugs and sometimes smells…and none of those are things you want in your kitchen. I kept seeing these electric composters and at first, I thought it was a little ironic that you had to use electricity to power something that is supposed to help our carbon footprint, but with the new law in Los Angeles prohibiting food waste in the garbage cans, I decided to make the leap to the Niviop Electric Composter.
What is it?
The Niviop Electric Composter is an appliance that turns your food waste into non-buggy, non-moldy compost in as little as 2.5 hours.
What’s in the box?
- The Niviop Electric Composter
- The drip tray
Specifications
- Capacity 2.5 Liters
- Product Dimensions 11.88″L x 10.6″W x 13.3″H
- Item Weight 14.15 Pounds
- Cycle time in Quick Mode: 2 hours 15 minutes to 4.5 hours
- Cycle time in Standard Mode: 3.5 hours to 5.5 hours
- Cycle time in Ferment Mode 12 to 20 hours
Setup and features
Setup is pretty easy, you just plug in the the Niviop Electric Composter and slide in the drip tray. There are two pre-installed activated carbon filters that can be replaced. I took them out to see how difficult they would be to remove, but they are supposed to last 1,000 hours of use, so it will be a while before I have to worry about that.
The buttons on top of the Niviop Electric Composter allow you to tell the machine how much is in your waste bucket and you can select one of three modes: quick, standard, and ferment. These settings affect how long your cycle will take and also what the finished product will be like. They are intuitive and easy to adjust.
I read through the Niviop Electric Composter manual which gives a nice overview of what can be composted and what can’t, what’s considered “green’ waste and what is “brown” waste. I was eager to get going so I found three wrinkly apples in my crisper bin and tossed them in the bucket. The quick mode is for run-of-the-mill kitchen scraps like the apples, and to put this composter to a real test, I didn’t even chop them up. It heat sterilizes the waste (at 120 degrees C) over the course of about 2 hours and 15 minutes to produce a dry pre-composted material that looked a lot like sawdust and smelled just slightly of baked apples.
The second mode on the Niviop Electric Composter is the standard mode, which takes around 4-5 hours depending on how full your bucket is. If you use this mode it takes longer, but the advantage is that you can compost degradable plastics. I had some Keurig cups that said they were recyclable so I grabbed those along with a lot of produce scraps and paper towels. Again I got a product that looked like bark chips with some melon seeds thrown in. I was surprised at how well that worked out because I couldn’t tell what was plastic and what wasn’t — the machine did a great job of breaking down that plastic but didn’t seem to touch the melon seeds at all, which is curious.
The third mode that the Niviop Electric Composter has is a ferment mode which takes around 12-20 hours depending on how much waste you have in there. This mode tries to replicate natural fermentation that would occur in a regular composter. You can buy the compost starter to boost performance, but I wanted to see how well it did without any help. This is the one cycle that they encourage you to look at your “green” to “brown” waste ratio. Most papers are considered brown, so I threw some of that in along with my usual “green” waste which this time consisted of eggshells, some really old oranges and carrots, and some melon rind. I know that my ratio of “brown” to “green” waste was nowhere near the ideal (4:1) but I ran it anyway. My general philosophy with kitchen appliances is that anything will do great under ideal circumstances — the trick is to see how it performs when things are less than ideal. And let’s face it, I bet you will be like me and find yourself with a big bucket of kitchen scraps and no browns around. The machine uses heat on and off to encourage the growth of microorganisms that break down waste. The product was wet and kind of clay-like. I was unsure if this product would allow fruit flies to hatch, so I threw it in the garden right away.
For all of my tests, I had some really huge chunks in there, including whole apples, whole oranges, 4-inch slices of melon rind, and full paper towels. I was pretty impressed by how the machine was able to handle it. I watched it, and if it got stuck it reversed direction and kept going. In the fermentation mode (and this is probably because I didn’t have enough brown waste in there), the waste got stuck to the bottom of the bucket and was no longer being stirred. I don’t know how long it was like that, but it did make me wonder if the finished product would be different if I had the correct ratio.
Cleaning the Niviop Electric Composter is easy. The bucket is dishwasher safe, but I just dumped mine out and kept going. I figure it’s all compost– I’m not eating out of it!
A couple of things bothered me about the Niviop Electric Composter. The first is that this is a very large appliance. It’s going to take up a lot of real estate in your kitchen if you keep it out. I was hoping to put mine under the sink, but it does get really hot in some of the modes. It gets hot enough that you can’t touch the sides or top of the machine, and it also makes quite a bit of condensation. The condensation drips into the tray so it doesn’t make a puddle, but I’m not sure that having such a hot appliance under the sink is the best idea. It became a moot point for me because it didn’t fit under my sink when I tried to put it there because of the plumbing. I’m still trying to figure out where this thing will live because it’s big and it needs a power outlet.
The other issue I had was with the manual. At one point it tells you to “pour the processed garbage into the storage box.” I don’t know what the storage box is. It’s not on the diagram in the manual. If there is a storage box, I’d like to use it! I suspect it might be part of the drip tray because I noticed there is a compartment there that doesn’t gather moisture. I just wish they’d labeled it.
I also wish this appliance was less expensive. I know all composters are pricey and I’m not exactly sure why…it’s essentially a food processor that heats up. Perhaps I’m missing some subtlety of the process. It is definitely a heavy-duty item so maybe it’s because of that.
I should mention that when I was reading reviews of this product, some people had trouble getting the waste bucket out of the machine. I also had this problem a time or two but in both cases, it was caused by not lifting the bucket straight up. If you pull it sideways it doesn’t want to come out because it fits into the machine so tightly.
What I liked
- Seemed to take whatever size scrap I threw at it.
- Worked quickly and produced a nice bug and mold free product.
What I’d change
- If it could be smaller, that would be better.
- Where is that storage box, exactly?
- I’d love a more accessible price.
Final thoughts
I really like using the Niviop Electric Composter and even though it’s a bit big, I like being able to use my food scraps and not have to deal with the yuck factor of traditional composting.
Price: $299.99 (using a $100 off coupon currently offered).
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The product for this review was provided by Niviop.
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Is there a 800 number or an email for the Niviop company? I’ve had this composter now for 2 months and it was working fine until 3 days ago. Now the blade is stuck and won’t move. There are string-like pieces that got caught under the blade and now the blade won’t move. I think possibly the string-like pieces may have come from the banana peels – just guessing. It shows, though, to be able to put in banana peels. I also cut the banana peels in half and separated the peels. Maybe I put too many in? I also always put in pieces of carboard, paper towels, pieces of bread, and paper into it so that half of the container is dry and wet like the directions say. I need to contact the company since it is under warranty. I also will eventually need to order a carbon filter box. Can you help me with a contact number or email? Thanks.
I’ll have a look and see if I can find a contract for you. I have had the exact same problem and I decided it happened because I didn’t have enough “brown” material, but I also had banana peels. I solved my issue by soaking the pot with water and dishwasher soap. Then I used a broom handle to wedge against the blade and move it. It worked fine after that, but I have been more careful to clean it after each cycle because I thought I might have a build up under the blade as well
Did you ever find any contact info. I bought one of these composters a few months ago and is has been getting noisier over time. So far I haven’t found a way to contact the manufacturer. Thanks.
I have not and my scrap bucket is now getting stuck! I did see that on the Amazon product page there is a spot to click to report an issue with the product or seller, so that’s what I think I’m going to do. That and file an update on this review.