The question of the right dishwasher tablet is a science in itself. While some people swear by products from unknown brands, the Finish brand stands for expensive premium products with all kinds of high-tech in the pressed powder. Their goal is nothing less than “ultimate cleaning”. That promises a lot. Unfortunately, however, Finish dishwasher tablets regularly receive a “poor” rating in tests by Stiftung Warentest, while the cheap products shine. Better performance for a cheaper price: the choice is probably not difficult for many customers.
The company “Reckitt”, which produces the Finish tabs, is very annoyed by this. And because it cannot be their products’ fault – in their opinion – they identified a culprit some time ago: the test dishwasher. It is old and the tests with it are misleading. This is why a Reckitt subsidiary has sued Stiftung Warentest for an injunction.
The lawyers demand in their complaint that this dishwasher should never be used again in tests with Finish products. Dozens of pages of paper that SZ As I could see, the lawyers for Reckitt and Stiftung Warentest have been exchanging views on this dispute for months. They will meet in court in 2025. But the dispute is much more than just a skirmish between lawyers. It is a keyhole into an otherwise hidden world that involves egg yolk, tea residue and the somehow very German question: How do you test a dishwasher tablet correctly? An absurd question, you might think. But for Reckitt, a lot is at stake, at least the good reputation of its own tablets. That is why the dispute.
Stiftung Warentest does not want to be interfered with in its tests
To delve into this dispute, three letters and a number are important: GSL2. This is the dishwasher made by Miele, which Stiftung Warentest uses to test whether a dishwasher tablet does what it is supposed to – clean the dishes. Reckitt wants to prevent this and argues that the machine is old and uses a lot more water than a modern one. Their “modern” tablet with little chemicals does not perform well because the large amount of water dilutes the tablet. This is unfair, the testers should get another machine.
This is naturally met with rejection by Stiftung Warentest. After all, they do not want to have their test rules dictated to them and they did not just pull them out of thin air. No, a German institution such as Stiftung Warentest asked experts, manufacturers and the “Industrial Association for Personal Care and Detergents” (IKW) almost ten years ago: What do we have to pay attention to? To the delight of the testers, the powerful association, of which all well-known manufacturers are members, had already produced a paper with a long-winded name in 2015: “Recommendations for quality assessment (EQ) of the cleaning performance of dishwasher detergents” is it[called
This paper is nothing less than a 16-page master plan for testing dishwasher tablets, starting with the recommended load of the dishwasher (egg yolk on top, pasta on the bottom) and the wall thickness of teacups to the fat content of milk residues. According to the paper, a minced meat/egg mixture warmed to room temperature must be mixed with 80 milliliters of synthetic water and homogenized with a kitchen mixer for two minutes before it can be spread on a porcelain plate with a fork. But be careful: a thumb-sized edge should remain clean at the edge. In addition to such instructions, there are precise diagrams showing when a plate is clean, dirty or just a little dirty. Dishwashing is apparently a science in itself.
For a long time, the Miele GSL2 was consensus
The right dishwasher is also part of this science. Which brings us back to the beginning: the GSL2, costing 5,000 euros, is a laboratory dishwasher. It has no eco program and no sensors so as not to falsify the tests. This is why the IKW industry association recommended it as a dishwasher for such tests. And because the powerful dishwasher tablet industry has put its tick under this paper, the Stiftung Warentest has relied on it.
The fact that Reckitt no longer likes the recommendation is a little ironic. After all, the relevant working group in the IKW was headed by a representative of Reckitt. Reckitt explains its change of direction as follows: the dishwasher was good back then, yes. But that was years ago and the Miele GSL2 is no longer state of the art. Markus Köhler, who is representing Reckitt in the matter, says: “You have to test with machines that people have at home.”
When a dishwasher is old is the crucial point
But how old is a typical household machine? Miele tests its dishwashers for a lifespan of 20 years, and other well-known manufacturers such as Siemens calculate similar lifespans. And the rule of thumb is that a dishwasher should be able to do 2,000 washes, which corresponds to a lifespan of around twelve years. This could mean, in turn, that the machines in German households are a few years old and therefore use more water. So the GSL2 would not be so unsuitable after all.
In addition to Stiftung Warentest, which considers the machine to be suitable, many manufacturers also seem to see it this way. If it were otherwise, Reckitt would have been able to push through a change in the IKW recommendations. However, there were not enough supporters in the association who also viewed the machine as critically, which is why the old recommendation from 2015 applies and Stiftung Warentest has been using it to date. According to the foundation, Reckitt was the only critic of the machine on the Stiftung Warentest advisory board.
In any case, the foundation considers the lawsuit to be unnecessary and does not want to be interfered with in any way. They have often received complaints because companies have performed poorly. “But we do not change the rules for individual providers,” says Michael Nowak, spokesman for Stiftung Warentest. The independence of Stiftung Warentest has also been confirmed by courts. They cannot be told how they should research.
So it will be difficult for Reckitt to get rid of the tried and tested GSL2 by taking legal action. Nevertheless, there is still a glimmer of hope. In 2021, and thus before the lawsuit, there was an intensive exchange between Miele and the manufacturers of dishwasher tablets about what a modern successor model to the GSL2 could look like. The result was the GSL3, which is likely to displace the GSL2 from the all-important association recommendation. This could perhaps also change the minds of Stiftung Warentest. Sales are scheduled to start in October 2024.