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Breville Fresh & Furious Review

With its user-friendly interface and stellar fruit-blending abilities, this blender is great for the daily smoothie drinker
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Breville Fresh & Furious Review
Credit: Breville
Price:  $200 List
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Manufacturer:   Breville
By Hayley Thomas and Genaveve Bradshaw  ⋅  Jun 3, 2022
67
OVERALL
SCORE


RANKED
#12 of 16
  • Smoothies - 30% 8.1
  • Convenience - 25% 7.0
  • Ice - 20% 6.7
  • Pureeing - 15% 3.8
  • Grinding - 10% 5.9

Our Verdict

The Fresh and Furious is extremely easy to use with nine presets, a digital timer, and a clearly labeled interface. The 60-second green smoothie setting produces some of the best green smoothies. Except for some unblended berry seeds, it also twists up a nice fruit smoothie. The lid can be a little fickle, resulting in quite the mess, but that problem is most prevalent when making soups. This blender is clearly not meant for grinding, and it struggles with pureeing. It is a great option if you are looking for a blender specifically for smoothies and do not plan to make nut butter or grind kernels into flour. See our best blender review to find out how this Breville model tests next to the competition.
REASONS TO BUY
Great green smoothies
Presets
Visual timer
REASONS TO AVOID
Finicky lid
Struggles grinding & pureeing

Compare to Similar Products

 
Awards  Best Buy Award
Best Bang for the Buck
 Best Buy Award
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Price $200 List
$199.95 at Amazon
$150 List
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$100 List
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$40 List
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Bottom Line The easy user interface and awesome smoothie performance are where this blender shines, but it isn't suitable for all pureeing and grinding needsConvenient and affordable, this blender is the perfect balance of price and performanceA blender with a pitcher fit to make many drinks, great for smoothies and margaritas but not so great for flour grinding or making soupA solid option for blending frozen beverages, without the same versatility as more expensive blendersA barebones, budget-friendly blender capable of making smoothies but not much else
Rating Categories Breville Fresh & Fu... Nutribullet Combo Ninja Professional... Ninja Professional... Hamilton Beach Powe...
Smoothies (30%)
8.1
7.5
6.5
6.2
5.1
Convenience (25%)
7.0
6.7
6.7
6.3
4.7
Ice (20%)
6.7
6.6
8.4
8.1
5.0
Pureeing (15%)
3.8
7.4
5.4
5.6
3.0
Grinding (10%)
5.9
7.9
6.5
4.9
2.0
Specs Breville Fresh & Fu... Nutribullet Combo Ninja Professional... Ninja Professional... Hamilton Beach Powe...
Model Number BBL620SIL1AUS1 NBC-12A BN701 BL610 58148A
Power Peak 1.5 HP Peak 1.6 HP Peak 1.9 HP Peak 1.3 HP Peak .94 HP
Pitcher Capacity 50 oz 64 oz 72 oz 72 oz 40 oz
Presets Yes, 9: Auto Clean, Green Smoothie, Ice Crush, Smoothie, Mix, Chop, Blend, Puree, Liquify, 10 speed settings, Pulse Yes, 2: Extract, Pulse, 3 speed settings Yes, 3: Smoothie, Ice Crush, Ice Cream Yes, 1: Pulse, 3 speed settings None
Measured Dimensions (base with pitcher) 17.3" x 8.5" x 6.9" 17" x 7" x 9.5" 17.5" x 9" x 6.8" 18" x 10.5" x 7.5" 14.7" x 8.7" x 6.5"
Dishwasher Safe Yes. Top rack only for lid. Yes Yes Yes Yes
Accessories Yes
  • Juicing cone
Yes
-32oz Cup with blade attachment
-24oz Cup with blade attachment
-2 To-Go lids
-Tamper
-Recipe book
No No No
Digital Timer Yes No Yes No No
Meant for Heating? No No No No No
Cord Length 3.9 ft 2.5 ft 2.5 ft 2.8 ft 2.2 ft
Wattage 1100 watts 1200 watts 1200 watts 1000 watts 700 watts
Measured Decibels for Standard Smoothie *not measured 83.7 *not measured 84.1 83.6
Measured Soup Temperature 84 145 74 73 105

Our Analysis and Test Results

The Breville Fresh and Furious sets itself apart with a juicing cone and a visible digital timer for convenience. The 50-ounce blender pitcher is on the slightly smaller side but still takes up the same amount of counter space as most blenders, with a blending capacity of 60 to 70 ounces. This blender works very well in specific scenarios, but falls short in others, read on to see how it holds up to our hands-on testing.

Performance Comparison


breville fresh & furious - the fresh & furious offers an easy-to-understand interface and...
The Fresh & Furious offers an easy-to-understand interface and produces tasty smoothies.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Smoothies


The Breville Fresh and Furious can whip up most smoothies in a quick 60 seconds with the smoothie setting, but some are better than others.

breville fresh & furious - this color may not be the most appealing, but the fresh and furious...
This color may not be the most appealing, but the Fresh and Furious makes a mean green smoothie.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

The Fresh and Furious creates a velvety textured green smoothie, complete with hearty greens like kale, blended with orange juice. It leaves a few small pieces of kale unblended, but the mixture flows nicely through a sieve leaving only a small amount behind. The green smoothie made by the Fresh and Furious is one of the best we've tasted.

breville fresh & furious - the fast and furious, pre-blend.
The Fast and Furious, pre-blend.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

The fruit with oats and berry smoothies are both equally delicious, although the texture leaves a little to be desired. These smoothies have a pretty significant presence of noticeably intact berry seeds. Although, the oats and almonds blend right in with the rest of the fruit, producing a thick but not grainy smoothie. The straight berry smoothie also requires roughly 120 seconds of blend time to ensure the right viscosity, which is twice the time of the smoothie setting. The Oreo milkshake is a little runny, more closely resembling melted ice cream than a proper malt milkshake.

breville fresh & furious - the oats and fruit smoothie remains a little chunky.
The oats and fruit smoothie remains a little chunky.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Ice


Our ice metric consists of two tests; ice crushing and margarita making. The Fresh and Furious does pretty well in both these tests producing mostly uniformed crushed ice and an almost Slurpee-like texture.

breville fresh & furious - check out the snowy crushed ice texture.
Check out the snowy crushed ice texture.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

The crushed ice has a bit of a grainy texture to it. While the ice chunks are crushed into uniform pieces, visible crystals cover each piece like powdered snow. It also takes a full 60 seconds to crush the ice fully, which is on the longer side. The margarita leaves us with a similar feel. The Fresh and Furious efficiently blends ice, alcohol, lemonade, and strawberries in 60 seconds to make a delicious margarita. Still, the texture is a teensy bit off, and it struggles to get started. The blender has to work very hard to begin the process but calms down quickly for the remaining 52 seconds of its cycle. This blender also leaves some slightly less uniform chunks in the margarita.

breville fresh & furious - the fresh and furious crushes ice satisfactorily but this is not...
The Fresh and Furious crushes ice satisfactorily but this is not where it shines brightest.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Convenience


The Fresh and Furious is very easy to use. The interface and presets are intuitive, the top, pitcher, and blades are dishwasher safe, and the shorter power chord prevents spills.

The Fresh and Furious is easy to wash by hand and dishwasher safe, and it comes with a cleaning preset. The removable inner lid can be used for measuring, which is a fun, unique feature, and the visible timer takes the guesswork out of your blending experience.

This blender has nine presets: auto clean, green smoothie, ice crush, smoothie, mix, chop, blend, puree, and liquify. These options are convenient and provide a good baseline.

The lid can be a little difficult to remove as the pitcher's contents become pressurized as they blend. Sometimes the lid becomes so pressurized that the contents explode out of the jar once you pry the lid off.

breville fresh & furious - here we made quite the mess trying to pry the lid off after making...
Here we made quite the mess trying to pry the lid off after making soup.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Pureeing


Unfortunately, the Fresh and Furious has a lot of room for improvement in its pureeing department.

While pureeing soups, the lid becomes pressurized and difficult to remove, and this blender cannot heat its contents, meaning you'll have to cook your soup over the stove. The nut butter takes a long time to get to a decently blended consistency and remains grainy regardless of how long you blend it. It also requires turning the concoction over while adding lots of oil to get to this subpar consistency. Overall, we would not recommend this blender for nut-fiends looking to make their own nut butters.

breville fresh & furious - the fresh and furious eventually blends the nuts into butter, but it...
The Fresh and Furious eventually blends the nuts into butter, but it is inconsistent and very labor intensive.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Grinding


Similar to pureeing, the Fresh and Furious does not pass the grinding test. This blender clearly struggles its way through all three tests, producing a rather chunky outcome.

The sugar is the most successful of the three tests, producing quite soft and powdery sugar throughout, except for the very bottom layer, which remains granulated. The parmesan requires all hands on deck. It must be sliced into smaller pieces before grinding and still leaves behind un-ground but softened chunks. The Fresh and Furious is not meant for grinding corn flour, and its performance reflects that. After the first 60-second cycle, practically no kernels are ground. After a second 60-second cycle, we were afraid we might break the blender.

breville fresh & furious - the fresh and furious leaves a lot of kernels unground.
The Fresh and Furious leaves a lot of kernels unground.
Credit: Genaveve Bradshaw

Should You Buy the Breville Fresh & Furious?


The Breville Fresh and Furious produces pretty amazing smoothies and okay margaritas but falls short in most other categories. It is not the most expensive in our test suite, but it is far from the least, so if you plan to make anything other than smoothies, we recommend that you look at some of the other options we tested.

What Other Blenders Should You Consider?


The Fresh and Furious is easy to use with a clearly labeled interface, and nine presets. Unfortunately, it does not measure up to some of the other options in our test suite in pureeing and grinding.

If you're willing to make the investment in a blender that is nearly perfect in every way, then we recommend the Vitamix A2500 Ascent Series. This blender has withstood the test of time against all other models over the years. The Cuisinart Hurricane Pro 3.5 also has a similarly excellent performance at a fraction of the price.

Hayley Thomas and Genaveve Bradshaw