Traeger, Inc. (Traeger) is the creator and category leader of the wood pellet grill, an outdoor cooking system that ignites all-natural hardwoods to grill, smoke, bake, roast, braise, and barbecue.
The company's Traeger grills are versatile and easy to use, empowering cooks of all skill sets to create delicious meals with a wood-fired flavor that cannot be replicated with gas, charcoal, or electric grills.
At the heart of the company's brand is a passionate and engaged community called the Tra...
Traeger, Inc. (Traeger) is the creator and category leader of the wood pellet grill, an outdoor cooking system that ignites all-natural hardwoods to grill, smoke, bake, roast, braise, and barbecue.
The company's Traeger grills are versatile and easy to use, empowering cooks of all skill sets to create delicious meals with a wood-fired flavor that cannot be replicated with gas, charcoal, or electric grills.
At the heart of the company's brand is a passionate and engaged community called the Traegerhood, which includes everyone from casual grillers to competition pitmasters and professional chefs. The company's flagship wood pellet grills are internet of things, or IoT, devices that allow owners to program, monitor, and control their grill through the company's Traeger app, which is used on more than 3.0 million mobile devices per month. The company complements its cooking technologies with an extensive digital library of original recipes and Traeger Kitchen Live cooking classes. In addition, the company offers consumable products, such as wood pellets, rubs, and sauces, that drive recurring revenue.
Leveraging the company's authentic brand and the Traegerhood, the company has established an omnichannel distribution strategy led by retailers ranging from Ace Hardware and The Home Depot to Amazon and Best Buy. The company complements this retail channel with direct to consumer ('DTC') sales through the company's website and Traeger app.
The company estimates that 76 million households in the United States own a grill, representing the total addressable market. The company sees opportunities to expand its integrated, connected cooking platform with new types of technologies and experiences. Together with the Traegerhood, the company is disrupting home cooking.
Products and Integrated, Connected Cooking Platform
The company has made significant improvements to its grills and technologies. Along the way, the company's product design has been centered on its core concepts of taste, versatility, ease of use, consistency, and community.
Beginning in 2014, the company pioneered a digital outdoor cooking experience. Using software, internet connectivity, and cloud technology, the company reinvented the original Traeger to be an IoT, device featuring a variety of modern technologies, including:
WiFIRE technology - Utilizes cloud-computing, the company's Traeger app, and its cloud-connected grills to enable users to automate recipe steps and control and monitor their grill from anywhere in the world using their smartphone.
D2 Direct Drive - An automated control system that maintains grill temperature to +/-5 degrees of set temperature through fans and DC auger control.
Super Smoke Mode - A proprietary cooking mode that maximizes production of hardwood smoke to infuse flavors into food.
Pellet Sensor - A connected sensor that measures wood pellet levels and communicates with the company's Traeger app, enabling users to monitor fuel levels and receive alerts when fuel gets low.
TurboTemp - A rapid startup system that brings the grill to cooking temperature and reacts quickly to temperature changes.
Smart Combustion - A proprietary technology that helps the company's grills maintain consistent cooking temperatures.
EZ Clean - A 2-in-1 grease and ash collection system.
The company's wood pellet grills feature modern, updated designs that improve upon the original. The company's grills use an auger to feed natural hardwood pellets into a fire pot, where they are ignited by a hot rod to create heat and flavorful smoke. A fan stokes the fire and creates convection, which is key to the versatility of the company's grills. A drip tray funnels the grease, fat, and oil to an external bucket to help prevent flareups and simplify cleanup.
Integrated Platform
The company's integrated platform includes six types of products: wood pellet grills, gas griddles, grilling accessories, digital content, the Traeger app and consumables. The company integrates these products to optimize the cooking experience and produce valuable feedback loops with consumers.
As a result, the company's integrated platform can drive grill usage, brand affinity, word of mouth, and purchases of the company's consumables.
Products
Grills
The company offers seven primary grill lines: Timberline Series, Ironwood Series, Pro Series with WiFIRE, Pro Series without WiFIRE, Town and Travel Series, Club Lineup, and Flatrock flat top grill. These grills vary in size, price, construction, materials, and digital technologies.
Digital Content
The company produces a library of digital content, including instructional recipes and videos that demonstrate tips, tricks, and cooking techniques that empower Traeger owners to progress their cooking skills. In addition, the company produces short- and long-form branded content highlighting stories, community members, and lifestyle content from the Traegerhood.
A Growing Library of Recipes
Creating an extensive array of wood-fired recipes is crucial to educating the company's consumers and inspiring them to cook more often and craft even better food. From quick and easy entry-level dishes to more advanced culinary endeavors, the company caters to all levels of cooks. The company's recipes include appetizers, main dishes, sides, desserts, and even wood-fired cocktails to tie the meal together. They range from traditional barbecue classics like ribs and brisket to Spanish-style Paella, Italian porchetta, and even homemade baked pie, allowing consumers to take full advantage of the grill's versatility. The majority of the company's recipes are developed and tested by its in-house culinary team. However, the company also leverages its network of chefs, recipe developers, and pitmasters to source recipes and insights.
Traeger Kitchen Live
Traeger offers live-streaming cooking classes to consumers through the company's Traeger Kitchen Live series, where the company's community ambassadors welcome consumers into their kitchens and instruct on how to use a Traeger for everything from barbecue brisket to baked goods. They also share tips and tricks and interact with viewers.
Traeger Shop Class
The company offers 'Shop Class: Private Table,' a series of shop classes that are taught online by community ambassadors and Traeger Pro team members and feature detailed prep-to-plate instruction. The small group format ensures that the class is personal and interactive. With the purchase of their ticket, participants receive a list of supplies they'll need to follow along in real-time. They are also mailed a swag bag filled with goodies. Shop Classes are also offered in-person in select markets throughout the year.
The Traeger App
The company's Traeger app, which the company launched in 2017, is a mobile software application available on iOS or Android devices. The Traeger app is free to download from the Apple App Store or Google Play, is free to use, and is used on more than 3.0 million mobile devices per month.
Consumables
The company offers a variety of Traeger-branded wood pellets, rubs, and sauces for use when cooking with the company's grills. The company's digital content and expanding collection of recipes provide users the opportunity to test their skills with these Traeger-branded flavor enhancers. In July 2022, the company suspended operations of Traeger Provisions, the company's premium frozen meal kit business, which the company launched in November 2021.
Accessories
The company offers a variety of grill accessories (including the P.A.L. Pop-And-Lock accessory rail, covers, drip trays, bucket liners, storage bins and shelves), tools to aid in meal prep, cooking, and cleanup (including pellet storage systems, cleaning solutions, barbecue tools and the MEATER smart thermometer), replacement parts, and apparel and merchandise (including t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts and baseball hats, in various styles).
Marketing
The company's strategy has been to harness the power of this community and strategically grow the company's brand using a 'win where it matters' approach, which focuses on core demographics that are aligned with the company's brand, from the barbecue world to the outdoors and culinary spaces.
With this targeted approach, the company has maintained a unique sense of authenticity as the creator of a cooking experience that welcomes everyone from casual backyard grillers to James Beard Award-winning chefs. The company's marketing strategy has produced organic growth by building relationships, having a strong brand presence at industry and culinary events, and winning the 'hearts and minds' of consumers with an authentic brand backed by devoted followers. The company has grown the brand by extending that playbook to new communities and geographic regions, all without losing the company's focus on engaging with existing grill owners.
Sales
The company has two primary sales channels: retail and DTC. The company's retail channel covers the company's relationships with brick-and-mortar retailers, e-commerce platforms, and multichannel retailers. The company's products were available at more than 13,200 retail locations globally as of December 31, 2023.
The company has built relationships with well-known national retailers, such as The Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Costco. The company also works with a significant number of independent retailers that cater to local communities and specific categories, such as hardware, camping, outdoor, farm, ranch, and barbecue. The company's DTC channel covers sales directly to customers through the company's website and Traeger app.
Intellectual Property
The Traeger brand is significant to the success of the company's business. The company protects its intellectual property rights in the United States and certain foreign jurisdictions.
The original patent for the wood pellet grill, which was filed by Joe Traeger in 1986, expired in 2006. As of December 31, 2023, the company had approximately 559 trademark registrations and 371 issued patents and pending patent applications in the United States and other countries. As of December 31, 2023, the company had approximately 71 issued U.S. patents and 17 U.S. patent applications pending and had approximately 208 issued foreign patents and 75 foreign patent applications pending. The company's material U.S. patents for its products generally expire between March 2026 and May 2039, and cover rights related to the company's WiFIRE technology, D2 Direct Drive, and Super Smoke, among others.
Competition
The company competes with established, well-known, and legacy grill brands, including Weber and Pit Boss, among others. The company also competes against other wood pellet grill brands, such as Dansons.
The company also competes against companies that manufacture griddles, such as Blackstone, and companies that manufacture pizza ovens, such as Ooni. The company also competes with providers of wood pellets for use in grilling, including well-known brands like Dansons, Bear Mountain BBQ, and Kirkland among others.
In July 2021, the company acquired Apption Labs Limited and its subsidiaries and began selling the MEATER smart thermometer. The company competes in this space with brands such as ThermoWorks, OXO, and ThermoPro, among others.
Seasonality
The company has typically experienced moderately higher levels of sales of the company's grills in the first and second quarters of the year (year ended December 2023) as the company's retailers purchase inventory in advance of warmer weather, when demand for outdoor cooking products is the highest across the company's key markets. Higher sales also coincide with social events and national holidays, which occur during the same timeframe. Additionally, the company has experienced higher sales volume of its accessories during the fourth quarter of the year, due in part to seasonal holiday demand.
Environmental Matters
Some of the more significant existing environmental laws and regulations applicable to the company's operations and its wood pellet production facilities in particular include the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended ('Clean Water Act'), as well as state laws and implementing regulations; the federal Endangered Species Act, as amended; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, as amended ('CERCLA'), also known as the 'Superfund' law, and analogous state laws.
The federal Clean Air Act, as amended ('CAA'), and state and local laws and implementing regulations, regulate the emission of air pollutants from the company's facilities.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended ('RCRA'), and comparable state statutes and regulations promulgated thereunder, affect the company's operations by imposing requirements regarding the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, disposal and cleanup of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes.
The company is subject to federal, state, local, and international laws and regulations, including the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, as amended ('OSHA'), and comparable state statutes, whose purpose is to protect the health and safety of workers. OSHA regulations impose various requirements, including with respect to training, policies and procedures and maintenance. In addition, the OSHA hazard communication standards in the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act and comparable state statutes require that information be maintained concerning hazardous materials used or produced in the company's operations and that this information be provided to employees, state and local governmental authorities and citizens.
Research and Development
The company's research and development expense was $11.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2023.
History
Traeger, Inc. was founded in 1987. The company was incorporated in 2017.
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