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Author: Wei Wen

Editor: Yuan Silai

Barbecue and dining in the yard is a common way for North American families to relax and socialize. With the arrival of summer, barbecue has become a popular choice for gatherings with family, friends and neighbors.

The reason why barbecue culture is so popular in North America is its inclusiveness and diversity. Whether it is family barbecue, camping barbecue or large-scale barbecue competitions, people from different backgrounds and cultures can be seen communicating and interacting. This also makes barbecue an important part of North American culture.

According to statistics, the sales volume of outdoor grills in the United States can reach 20 million units a year, and about 80% of American households have outdoor grills. In the United States, this is a US$6 billion (approximately RMB 43.2 billion) market segment.

Hard Krypton noticed that "ASMOKE" from Shenzhen is targeting the overseas outdoor grills. Its products are mainly fruit wood pellet grills, and it has now landed on the Kickstarter overseas crowdfunding platform. A fruit wood pellet grill product priced at US$309 has currently raised more than US$1 million. ASMOKE's founding team is from DJI, and recently received a round A financing from Guangyuan Investment, and angel round financing from Professor Gao Bingqiang and Brizan Venture.

In 2021, after leaving DJI, ASMOKE's founder Wu Wenqi began looking for a business direction. When researching the outdoor grill market, the ASMOKE team was optimistic about the future development space of fruit wood pellet grills. It is reported that fruit wood pellet stoves have grown from US$500 million to nearly US$2 billion in the past 8 years. It is a category that currently accounts for a slightly smaller proportion but has room for growth and has been verified by the market. Local user awareness in the United States is very complete.

Wu Wenqi explained to Yingke that among outdoor grill products, fruit wood pellet grills have both safety and diverse grilling methods, which can achieve everything from high-temperature roasting to low-temperature smoking and slow roasting; using fruit wood pellets, a renewable energy source, as fuel will make the barbecue more tender and juicy, with the flavor of fruit wood smoke, and it is also more environmentally friendly; different types of fruit wood pellets can also bring unique aromas, adding unique flavors to the food.

The fruit wood pellet grill is a smart alternative product. The ASMOKE team found in communication with users that one of the main pain points users face when using grills is the inability to accurately control the heat and temperature, which causes the food to burn or not be cooked.

Traditional ovens are difficult to achieve precise temperature control, and often require users to have rich experience and skills to achieve the ideal baking effect. During the long cooking process, users need to constantly adjust the fire and turn the food, which not only increases the complexity and fatigue of the operation, but also affects the interaction and enjoyment during the party. In order to solve these problems, more and more users are beginning to seek oven products that can provide stable temperature control and simple operation, such as intelligent fruit wood pellet ovens, in order to improve the quality and fun of the barbecue experience.

ASMOKE's new product ASMOKE Essential was launched on Kickstarter on June 11, and raised $230,000 on the first day. This is the first intelligent outdoor fruit wood pellet grill. ASMOKE Essential provides users with a variety of grilling modes and recipes to choose from, while ensuring stable temperature control, allowing users to control the progress of the grill.

ASMOKE

In addition to being used in the garden, ASMOKE Essential has also designed a variety of accessories for camping, RVs, yachts and other usage scenarios to meet the personalized needs of users in different scenarios. In the camping scenario, ASMOKE Essential is compatible with IGT (Iron Gril Table, a DIY table commonly used in camping) products on the market, providing more playability for camping enthusiasts.

In terms of channels, in addition to its online independent website and Amazon, ASMOKE has also entered many domestic sales channels in the United States, such as Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe's, etc. While selling ovens, ASMOKE's product ecosystem also includes fruit wood pellets, barbecue tables, Bluetooth probes, barbecue tools, etc. In the future, small, medium and large fruit wood pellet ovens, outdoor pizza ovens and outdoor kitchens will be gradually deployed in the product matrix.