Gas Grills made in USA

Sixty-one years ago, George Stephen got tired of wind and rain messing up his cooking on an open-air grill, the main barbecue tool of the day. He grabbed a buoy made where he worked, Weber Brothers Metal Works in Illinois. He sliced it in half and fashioned a tight-fitting dome lid. It didn’t work very well until a neighbor suggested he poke holes in the kettle so air could fuel the fire. The Weber grill was born.

Stephen eventually bought the Weber metal shop, creating Weber-Stephen Products of Palatine, Ill., which is now the world’s largest grill manufacturer. The privately held company doesn’t disclose financials, but Euromonitor International says Weber-Stephen claims 35 percent of the $2.5 billion U.S. market, with rival Char-Broil a distant second.

In 1971, Stephen hired Mike Kempster, Weber-Stephen’s current chief marketing officer. He calls himself the “godfather of the brand.” In a warehouse adjoining a plant in Huntley, Ill., Kempster gestures at thousands of shrink-wrapped boxes of grills and smokers stacked in 20-foot towers. “Looks like a big supply, right?” he asks. “It’s probably less than a week.” He won’t specify how much the factory produces, but around 80 trucks haul stuff away daily. Shipments peak at about 110 semis a day just before July 4.

Illustration by Jennifer Daniel; Photo: Alamy

That’s a lot of barbecues, but grill sales have flattened over the past few years, partly because of the U.S. housing downturn, Kempster says. While the company sees that turning around, it still faces challenges from Europe’s financial struggles, volatile commodity costs, and low-cost overseas manufacturers.

Weber-Stephen has changed more in the past decade than it did in the previous half-century. It contracted to have grills built in China to go with production in Huntley and Palatine. It agreed to stop labeling products “Made in USA” to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused it of buying components from China and Taiwan suppliers. (The company denied wrongdoing.) It also introduced a line of compact grills designed for dense urban areas such as those sprouting up across Southeast Asia.

The biggest change was financial: In 2010 the Stephen family sold a majority stake to BDT Capital Partners, the Chicago merchant bank run by Byron Trott, the former Goldman Sachs executive known for his close ties to Warren Buffett. Kempster says BDT’s investment will help Weber-Stephen push overseas. The first nonfamily member to run the company, Thomas Koos, formerly of Jacuzzi Brands and Black & Decker, took over as chief executive officer in April.

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