Cherry & Olive Stoner

Like all the other reviewers I too found the cherry stoner excellent but as I only buy cherries in season it is not used a great deal, hence I've had mine for some years. However this year when retrieved from the drawer for some stoning, the plunger part fell into the bowl with the cherries and despite my best efforts to jam it back in, it still kept falling out. I was only after reading the other reviewers I realised it must be faulty. Is it too late to return mine? I would say they could be repaired or the plunger bit permanently fixed in some way?

We have 1 cherry tree and bought this pitter 3 yrs ago to pit cherries to freeze. No harvest that year so pitter not used until the following year. Better harvest, and for 1 week pitter worked wonderfully. Then the prong began falling out occasionally, which was most frustrating. However, the next time we used it - last year - we had a good harvest and to our utter despair the prong fell out with EVERY CHERRY WE TRIED TO PIT! I tried to jam the prong back in very hard, and this year managed to pit 9 cherries before it fell out, but after that it fell out with every cherry so have now given up.

This gadget stoned the first pack of cherries perfectly. Few days later used it again, after a few cherries the prong lodged in the cherry, I did try pushing it back into the fitting but it kept falling out. Very annoying indeed.

All went well destoning the first dozen cherries but then the business part of the stoner came adrift and became wedged in the cherry. Tried to mend it but to no avail. I exchanged it for another but the same thing happened again. Returned again to the shop and obtained refund. Shame because the cherries which were destoned were very good.

Not impressed! I can stone 1 or 2 cherrys/olives before the gadget falls apart. Then put it back together for it all to happen again.

This was one of those gadgets that you think 'Do I REALLY need it?' and the answer is YES!! Easy to use, useful and even my young children manage to use it. Saves me worrying about them choking on the stones. FANTASTIC product!

My mum has had one of these for as long as I can remember. When I spotted them in Lakeland I had to have one. I have not been disappointed.

I bought this when I was wanting to stone a batch of damsons. It wasn't suitable for that job, but I was glad I had it when I needed to stone some discounted cherries for jam last weekend. It took some getting used to - like the other reviewer, I needed to check the catch at the back occasionally. I also found that it didn't always spit the stone out straight away ... once I'd realised this, it didn't take much time to check. The quality of the cherries were fine afterwards, could have easily served them in a salad. Yes, it could be better as the other reviewers suggested ... but so much quicker than fishing stones out of the jam!

I'd wanted one of these for a while, but having finally bought one I'm disappointed - it only stoned about one in ten olives nicely; the rest it massacred, squishing them into an inelegant mess while leaving lots of olive behind on the stone. My boyfriend tried using it too, to check that the problem wasn't with me rather than the gadget, but he had the same results. It's possible that this works better with cherries, or with very large olives, but for "normal" sized olives I get better results with a knife (or, indeed, my hands).

I thought that I would be buying something that would save me time. It does not de stone all of the cherrys and still had to cut in half to check that all the stones had come out. (however this is not too much of a problem) My one never stays in its closed position for long, the catch bit at the bottom is too lose so it comes open all the time. just an ok product.

I have been unable to get this to stone either a cherry or an olive - its hopeless. I was worried that it was just me being inept but have tested it on a number of people - I have yet to see someone stone anything without punching several holes in the olive.

I thought this was the most wonderful invention ever until the business bit fell off the device late last night, halfway through the job, and having only used it on one previous occasion. It seems to be held in with four little nibs that fit with pressure into the head of the stoner, and it just fell out. Put it back in but it wouldn't stay.

I will only buy olives with their stones in so this is invaluable.

I use the cherry stoner for small wild plums. We have around 15 trees and this year has been a bumper crop. I wanted to make jams and chutneys so used the cherry stoner to stone the plums. It must have saved me hours of fiddly work trying to cut out the stones. Brilliant

This exceeded my expectations, what an excellent gadget! Easy to use and saves lots of time and mess. Wish I had bought one a long time ago!

Absolutely brilliant. The stoner arrived this morning, which was perfect timing as I had been given a large bowl of small wild cherries. My dear husband - who is always right - said it wouldn't work with those small cherries, so I gave him the first ( beautifully de-stoned !) one. He had to admit that it worked perfectly. It also worked on our BIG patio cherries, so a very good investment for this time of year. Thank you.

I asked a friend to pop in to buy this for me as I wanted to update my very old and now blackened aluminium stoner. Shame I didn't go myself as I wouldn't have bought it. Sounds trivial but in days of yore, stoners had a slot in the bowl so that you could hold the cherry's stalk in your fingers and feed it into the bowl. Operating the stoner then meant that the stone popped out usually still connected to the stalk. A tedious and messy job took less than half of the time that it now does with this 'new improved' version. Mine is going in the bin and I will search out a slotted version.

I wondered if it would work with the smaller cherries I had to stone - it did - 4lbs of cherries stoned during the first set of the Wimbledon Men's final today! Fantastic little gadget!

just bought this to de- stone cherries for making cherry jam, made it so easy, dont know how i managed without one before, well worth buying

I have always loved cherries but couldn't stand eating around the stones, this little gadget is brilliant it makes stoning cherries so quick and easy I don't why it took me so long to buy it.