Back in the day, in the late '90s, when I started designing web sites, I learned very quickly not...
Grilling and Chilling
In the annals of public relations and marketing, the National Day / Week / Month of (Insert Item / Topic here) became a thing.
Now, we have so many National Days / Weeks / Months that it would be impossible to fully recognize any one of them in a meaningful way.
Nevertheless, every year PR and Marketing folks, comedians and reporters seize on the National Day Calendar that celebrates industry, food, a cause, quirkiness, etc.
You can even register your very own National Day, Week or Month by going to https://nationaldaycalendar.com/register-a-national-day and submitting your entry to become one of the approximately 1,800 National Days, 300 National Weeks or 360 National Months.
So, with summer activities top of mind, and as an avid wood- and charcoal griller and smoker of meats and veggies -- even fruit -- who competed in a couple of Kansas City Barbecue Society contests before COVID, I looked for grilling days, weeks and months and found a few including National BBQ Month in May and National Grilling Month in July.
My mind then pivoted to the significance of grilling in the USA and it popped into my head that grilling has evolved from a summer past-time to year-round for many grill-masters like me, even in colder climates.
And that got me to wondering just how many people actually fire up their grills or smokers in colder months. That would be a good piece of information if I sold grills, smokers, accessories and supplies, I thought.
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A simple Google search for "how popular is grilling in winter?" brought up lots of results but none that answered the question; they instead offered tips on cold weather grilling.
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On the second page of results a winter grills tips story on the American-Made Grills site stated "In fact, one survey reveals more than half of American grill owners grill all year round, and a whopping 37 percent keep on grilling when the temperature dips below freezing." While it provides an idea of winter grilling's popularity, you can't bank on an unattributed survey.
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That tidbit did, however, provide a clue so I searched "survey half of grillers grill all year long." This brought up all relevant results on the first page on Google from 2006 forward.
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Among those results -- summaries of three surveys from the sales and marketing agency Acosta Inc., which found in 2015 that 39 percent grilled year-round, in 2018 that 42 percent grilled year-round, and in 2019 that 46 percent grilled year-round -- a 7 percent increase in year-round grilling in four years. Notably, 61% of Gen Z's and Millennials said they grilled year-round.
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The annual GrillWatch Survey by the Weber grill company showed similar numbers. The 2006 version of the survey didn't even address the question of cold weather grilling other than who grills over the winter holidays. But the survey showed year-round grilling increased from 49 percent in 2011 to 53 percent in 2020.
- A poll for the Kansas City Steak Company of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted earlier this year showed 56 percent grill all year long.
This all sounds good for possible grilling promotions to customers through the winter.
However, after seeing references to declining sales and the resignation of Weber's CEO, I dug deeper and found that Weber, a leading manufacturer of grills led by its ubiquitous kettle grill line, as well as another grill manufacturer, Traeger Grills, reported first quarter sales declines this year of 7 percent and 5 percent respectively this year.
Weber had come off spectacular sales increases of 23.1 percent in 2020 and 25.2 percent in 2021 during the pandemic. The online news service Axios quoted Weber CEO Chris Scherzinger as attributing the decline to people returning to normal travel and dining out habits after COVID restrictions loosened. That meant less grilling and a need for the grills that account for 75 percent of Weber's overall sales, according to a February 2022 presentation by the company.
Axios also reported that Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus told investors in a conference call that "A shift in consumer spending away from durables towards services" is undermining sales.
The decline resulted in Scherzinger departing, Weber considering layoffs, and Traeger announcing job cuts.
I had another hunch about the decline in sales at those two companies, though. If this were a report for a client in the grilling industry, I would next investigate if another reason for the declines could be that the spike during the pandemic saturated the market with grills that won't need to be replaced for years, as has been my experience with Weber grills, and / or the COVID-induced spike in sales was a naturally temporary event.
Said CookOut News CEO Wes Wright to Axios in an email, "The problem is that grill companies got used to the hyper expansion driven by the pandemic. They believed the pandemic levels of demand would remain, and we're seeing a shift back to normal from consumers."
So, what would you do with that information? Would you hold off on grilling promotions in cold weather months because of the troubles at two prominent grill manufacturers or plan to increase promotions during cold weather months based on the increase in cold weather grilling in the past decade?
This quick research indicates to me that the increase in cold weather grilling is a more durable trend than the big increase in sales of durable goods like grills during a pandemic and that winter promotions other than the typical discounted winter prices could give a boost to companies in the grilling market during traditionally slow months.
For more thorough, proprietary research tailored specifically to questions and problems for your organization and industry, contact me on my Contact page, at ericm@edminfopro.com, or by phone at 302-537-4198. You can also request an online meeting with me.
