AI is coming to garden barbecues and could double the size of the market

Grilling and barbecuing have been relatively simple activities for decades. Throw a steak, brisket or pork butt on a grill, monitor the temperature and nurse a beer until it’s done. There were innovations, of course, but the core of the exercise was relatively technology-free. However, like many other things, this could change as artificial intelligence becomes more widespread.

Just as companies in other industries pursue AI-related stock hikes, the outdoor cooking industry is also keeping a close eye on the technology. And smart grills are one of the latest trends aimed at broadening the audience and making the job of suburban pitmasters easier.

The outdoor cooking industry reported $6.8 billion in revenue in 2022. And some of the biggest names are publicly traded, but maybe not always under the names you see on the floors of Home Depot or Lowe’s. Middleby Corp., for example, owns the Kamado Joe and Masterbuilt brands. Traeger Grills began operations in 2021. Weber, another industry giant, was publicly traded until last year, when BDT Capital Partners opted to take it private. And WC Bradley Co., which owns Char-Grill, Pit Boss and Oklahoma Joe’s, among others, is currently also a privately held company.

The public, however, stagnates a little. Grills are not an annual purchase for most people. And while grill manufacturers offer plenty of accessories to boost revenue between big purchases, from pizza stones to specialty pellets or charcoal, the manufacturer’s dream is to expand the audience without alienating existing customers. .

“AI is going to be interesting in the outdoor kitchen space,” says Josh Silva, vice president of marketing at Middleby Outdoor. “There is a balance between what we offer consumers and the level of convenience they want, because there is something to be said for tending the fire and experiencing the real fire. For us, it’s going to be up to us to find the right balance between providing the right set of technology features, whether that’s convenience or additional engagement opportunities… You don’t want to take away from the total experience.

Proponents of AI in outdoor cooking say it simplifies the process. Seergrills, a British startup, turned heads at CES earlier this year with the Perfecta, an AI-powered vertical infrared oven that reaches temperatures of more than 1,600 degrees and cooks a steak in less than three minutes, without the need to return it. Built-in temperature sensors recognize when food has reached your preferred temperature, whether rare, medium or good; then the heat stops.

“When using traditional cooking methods, there are about eight variables to consider,” said Suraj Sudera, CEO and founder of Seergrills. “These include food thickness, fat and water content, starting temperature, transfer temperature, ambient temperature, heat source variability, surges heat and food versatility. It takes years of practice for the most experienced grill masters to perfect their skills and overcome common challenges like dryness or over or under cooking. Grilling with AI provides significant benefits by allowing the system to monitor variables and account for them by controlling the cooking system.

Perfecta’s AI uses subjective user feedback and objective sensor data to improve, taking readings every second of cooking time.

Everyone in the industry is putting more emphasis on smart grilling technology. Weber, in 2021, acquired smart appliance and technology company June, which it had previously worked with to develop its Weber Connect grill technology.

The new models from Kamado Joe and Masterbuilt are also much smarter than the grills most people are used to. The Kamado Joe Konnected will light charcoal with the touch of a button and allow users to set their preferred temperature, keeping the grill at that level, eliminating the sometimes onerous task of constantly monitoring the fire during several hours of cooking so that food finishes as desired. .

The Masterbuilt Gravity XT, meanwhile, which will be released in April, offers a gravity-fed charcoal system that provides indirect heat via a fan and digital controller. Like the Konnected, it electronically maintains the optimal temperature without human supervision, with approximately 2.5 times the cooking space of an average grill.

The benefit of this technology? Convenience. Gas grills became popular because people could instantly light a fire, cook whatever they wanted, and then continue with their day, without worrying about lighting the grill and maintaining a consistent temperature. By adding AI and smart features to new grills, whether charcoal or electric, manufacturers hope to increase the time people spend cooking outdoors beyond the weekend.

Kamado cooking, for example, only accounts for 3% of the total kitchen market, in part because the process can be intimidating. The addition of connected technology, Middleby hopes, will expand that market.

“We designed this product (the Kamado Joe Konnected) to target a new category of people,” Silva explains.

However, by adding these features to the new grills, the company wants to be careful not to alienate current loyal users.

“That’s why we left it open to control things manually,” says Silva. “We realized that a subset of our core users enjoyed this manual experience. It’s really a balancing act in many ways to say how technology is too… AI was the talking point at CES, but what does that really mean, especially in our space? Is it a system that allows you to refine your cooking process? For us, where we are right now, it’s more about an algorithm and refining it to get smarter over time.

Sudera agrees that traditionalists will make up most of the market in the short term. However, over time, he expects AI and other smart features to become more common on outdoor cooking devices.

“(As) with most things in life, there will be an element of the market that sticks to traditional techniques, just like people who still drive with the stick shift,” he says. “However, over time, convenience technologies gradually increase their market share, starting with modest adoption until reaching a critical mass where they largely displace older technologies.”

If true, this could significantly expand the market. Allied Market Research estimates that by 2032, the value of the barbecue market will more than double to $12.8 billion.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com