Traeger released earnings earlier this week and saw year-over-year growth in all segments of their business. Most importantly, they’ve worked their inventory position down to a point where they’re getting growth out of grill sales. Check their press release for all the numbers, we’ll focus on the key take-aways from their earnings call.
Consumers Need a Catalyst
Traeger CEO, Jeremy Andrus, noted some trends that they’ve noticed with the consumer in this headwind heavy environment. The first being that the consumer needs a catalyst to buy grills.
Our sell-through trends this year indicate that the consumer is often willing to spend when there’s a catalyst to purchase a grill, but is less likely to spend when there isn’t a catalyst. So during seasonally stronger periods, holidays and promotional events, we have seen relatively better demand with positive growth and grow sell-through in certain of these periods. Whereas in seasonally slower periods in between holidays or promotional events, we have generally seen softer sell-through.
Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger
Beyond needing a catalyst, the replenishment cycle of a grill was disrupted through the pandemic with pull-ahead of grill buying. Traeger is sure when replenishment will return to normal. Right now they’re seeing big ticket buying out of necessity, which isn’t surprising.
What we’re seeing, and I’d step back and look at just broader big ticket, everything that we see in here across consumer big ticket categories is that replacement is happening more out of necessity than out of upgrade and discretion. And we think that trend continues. In this economy with higher interest rates, consumers’ finances, we think we won’t catch back up to normalized replacement cycle. Hard to know based on the data that we see when that will be
Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger
Success and Opportunity with MEATER
One of the best financial decisions made in recent history was acquiring the wireless thermometer company MEATER. It’s being very successful for Traeger’s accessory segment. They hope that continues with the recent release of the MEATER 2 Plus.
It’s also a area that Traeger sees as having opportunity for continued growth. According to Traeger, 20 million meat probes are sold in the U.S. every year.
I would also — just speaking to — we launched this week a new MEATER product, the MEATER 2 Plus. And I think it’s important for us to just acknowledge that is another market that’s very large. If you look at the U.S., for example, there were 20 million meat probes sold per year. We are a small percentage of those. We have a very, very passionate and engaged consumer of meter. The product, which includes a digital experience, and we will continue to innovate there.
Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger
Brand Awareness Efforts
Traeger has done a great job through the years of brand building. It’s their first growth pillar, and something that they continue to see success with. As part of that they have been working on getting Traeger products prominently displayed at retail locations.
At the Home Depot, we made meaningful progress on our initiatives to elevate our merchandise in the third quarter. In the quarter, we added more than 300 Traeger Islands at Home Depot locations across the country and ended with more than 800 Traeger Islands. As a reminder, these islands are elevated fixtures that prominently feature Traeger grills, consumables and accessories and offer a more premium shopping experience. Home Depot locations with a Traeger Island are meaningfully more productive for our brand versus the chain average.
Jeremy Andrus, CEO of Traeger
While they focus on The Home Depot for their earnings call, it’s something that they work on at all their retailers. The Home Depot is the largest seller of grills though, so it’s the most notable.