Big Green Egg 50th Anniversary 1974-2024

[Music] hello I'm Ed fiser I founded the big Ren egg and this is the story of how it happened let's start at the beginning there were dry leaves lightning then fire see our ancestors began cooking dinosaurs with this exciting Discovery in the world of live fire grilling well that's never been the same well Edgars this is where it all started there almost 50 years to the day that I came to Atlanta figured maybe this is a good place to launch your business and I was just riding around taking a look at the town when I saw a for rent sign so I thought well what what the heck I need a store so I went in and the happily the uh the owner of the shopping center was there and I said uh is this store available is yes yes it is I figured what am I going to do with all this space I took a chance and the Big Green Egg story is full of chances that I took and I said I will take it and right here this is where it started but the Story begins further back than that early cultures used dome vessels to heat food except for the propan who scorched their meats over volcanic gases and the patoni who starved and disappeared from the planet while trying to unjam their augers in the US kamato cookers first appeared when service members shipped them home from Japan and that's how Ed Fischer discovered this way of cooking he became interested in reselling them and when he went to look at kamad he saw a pachenko game which he thought might also sell in the states in 1974 he began importing both and opened a small shop called the Pachinko house so I was ready to go into business and into my small store that I had here we carded in a few of these Strang looking clay cookers I can remember people walking up and down saying poor fella I never heard of this he won't be here very long this was 50 years ago to attract curiosity by passers by Ed fiser simply placed a komato in front of his shop put some chicken wings on it and the delicious smell soon attracted the attention so the day came I figured we've got to demonstrate this product how else is anybody going to know what it is so I dug deep into my small budget and brought back with me a couple of pounds of chicken wings within minute the aroma permeated the area and to my surprise they were amazed the comments that I got my goodness I never tasted chicken wings as good as this finally one bold Soul said I I think uh I think I'd like to take one so there was my first sale back at chicken wings 30 minutes later I knew I was in business imagine that 30 minutes from demo to sale clearly his future is in commad not pachinko machines this sidewalk demo and realization of how effective it was became key to the success of the Big Green Egg and it's just as important today 50 years later you have to demonstrate you can't let the the egg sit inside the store and except expect people to come in and buy it just doesn't work we found there was a big difference from those that would demonstrate and those that didn't was there a lot that they didn't demonstrate it was just another item on their floor and it didn't matter what the salesman said to tell them how good it is cooking on it was far more effective in every way I don't know how many hundreds of Saturdays there were that uh I'd get up early morning and buy a turkey bring it back to the store prepare it bring the turkey in and start to slice it off that vertical rooster and the juices would just flow out of there there was be ooze and ours in the audience as soon as if one person bought I knew I had them all you know but you you needed one person to to take the step forward say I I'll take what out despite the great results Ed's early clay cookers were fragile and not well known Ed knew there was a lot of work ahead of him and yet he pressed on there was no going back I was 40 years old I didn't want to go looking for a job if this business didn't succeed what would come next it had to work there were others out there who took a shot at selling komad but they were not willing to put in the time and the work and when things were not going bad they quit I didn't quit because there was no going back there wasn't that there there was no retreat was part of the reason the other is I saw we had a great product and I had the confidence that if we did it right it would it would take off fully committed to developing his product Ed realized he needed to call it something unique his inspiration came from a newspaper ad salesman I knew what I had to do I had to find a better name of for kamado after all who's going to remember getting a kamado at the pachenko store or a pachenko at the kamado store whatever it is it confused people and as a result the ad produced some results but it was lukewarm so the day came the Atlanta Journal rep uh to pay his weekly visit and we set up an ad to be run the following week before he left I said uh look I don't think this is working the way I would like we've got to find a better name so that they were egg shaped and I said aha we've got to start it looks like an egg it's certainly big now we've got to pick a color my choice was green putting it all together together it came out the Big Green Egg sounded good I said to the salesman great we'll use it and it's been the Big Green Egg ever since now that the product had a name Ed turned his attention to improving it at first his mission was to find better replacement parts but yet another Twist of luck opened the door to a complete manufacturing process and this enabled Ed to Envision the best grill ever made we knew we had something really really important but it was necessary to find a supplier better than the one that we we now had we looked everywhere we looked in other countries we looked within the United States and then something very opportunistic happened something very fortunate in our searching for a new suppli we contacted the ceramic Department of dur dech we didn't even know they had a ceramic department they put us in in touch with a company in Mexico that was in a tile business they had large kilms and they produced various ceramic parts for other applications but they also were unfamiliar with what a kamado was fortunately Ed had an ally in the form of a friend and manager in the Ceramics company who kept pushing the project forward deline he finally convinced management that we should at least try to make the entire coverer that began the project of using their technical expertise to make the proper molds to make the internal parts to make the other things that go into a complete kamado all except the painting that they they didn't have an answer for so the first shipment we got from Mexico were these unpainted kamados the colored was a pale yellow we'll finally re received samples of the new Kato complete that they were making and they were beautiful perfectly formed things would fit properly and it would appear that we were ready to go but there was two things that we needed one we needed hardware and of course we we needed some type of paint to go over it well we went throughout the Atlanta area looking for someone for just spray paint the Cado with automobile paint well it wasn't feasible because the cost to paint a Cado was as much as the cost to produce the Cado so that wouldn't work would seem that we were on a stand still however they went to work on the idea and they found that right in their very plant was a product called Fritz which consisted of ground glass which would subsequently be melted and provide the coating for certain types of tile we got something that was far superior to the paint that we had cons been considering we had something that was permanent wouldn't discolor wouldn't wash off wouldn't burn it could actually carry a lifetime guarantee the development of the ceramic egg was one of the most pivotal steps in the history of the young company but Ed still had to deal with the per C of a fragile clay cooker inspired by Brands like Craftman tools with a lifetime guarantee Ed made another big decision it was at that point when we saw the quality of the uh the cookers coming from Mexico we said this is really wellmade we could give a lifetime guarantee not only to the paint covering but to the whole kamado itself his sense of consumer reaction was right on his product was now able to move into Main stream distribution and consumers were not afraid of it breaking Ed also advertised aggressively in the newspaper which was about the only way to advertise all those years ago and some of these ads are true Classics at that time the newspaper was probably the best source that I had but I I ran it consistently week after week after week the same size ad sometimes uh showing a sale sometimes a new product but uh people used to to look for that ad and people would come in 3 4 years later and had the ad folded up in their wallet and showing it to me you know this is how I found out about it when these ads increased sales a larger location became necessary and so the business moved into its own building with room for offices retail and distribution this location also played host to a couple of octoberfests another big part of the Big Green Egg history we were very happy in that lawrencville building because uh it had nice offices uh nice Accents in the back of the building where we actually had a few egg toober fests Big Green Egg was first introduced no one dreamed it would one day have its own holiday but each year now eggtoberfest brings together egg heads from all over the world to celebrate the great taste that can only be created with the world's favorite kamato cooker the recipe for October Fest calls for one part ancient Japanese art one part German festival and a blend of culinary enthusiasm from Chefs of all levels from around the world and the foods are as diverse as they could be but the common denominator is that everything is cooked on the Big Green Egg the komato style cooker whose growing popularity is developed into an unofficial Society of Big Green Egg owners some of them may call themselves egg heads but these owners of the Big Green Egg are serious about the distinct difference in quality when food is cooked on this cooker egg Fest and ectober Fest are the essence of Big Green Egg all these cook teams out here you know pouring their heart into making you this unique bite and they might make it five or six different times over so you walk around and you eat the most unique food you know showing the versatility of the egg and just having a great time mean the Fellowship of this event this is what big green egg's all about around 2010 after the company had been in operation for 35 years Ed decided to step aside and a new face joined the team Ry Irani became the second CEO in company history I knew that the the company needed to grow I got to know Ry and I I quickly recognized that he had a lot of the skills that would be necessary if we were going to uh take our company to a higher level became my job to convince him that he belonged with the Big Green Egg already brought with him a legal background a mechanical background because he had been involved with the the racing industry and the financial background because he successfully run a company before so uh it was this combination of things that convinced me that he was the right person I've enjoyed becoming a chairman of the board it has allowed me to uh participate in the continued growth of the business and uh the actual operation of the business could not have been in more capable hands it just worked out well thanks Ed you know it's been a challenging interesting and rewarding Journey so far and you know I've always told you you left a pretty big pair of shoes to fill and along with a fantastic team of people we're working diligently to continue the legacy of what you started all those years ago soon after Arty came on board the Distribution Center expanded again the company headquarters also moved into a separate facility designed to accommodate every aspect of the growing business from product development to creative Services a state-of-the-art culinary Center and museum this is the original Imperial kamado and it came from Japan and uh very wellmade and uh this one one happens to be green with orange highlights it came not only in this color but it came in a multitude of colors green and black and red and yellow and maybe some other colors as well so there were a broad selection and as far as sizes go there was a multitude of sizes I can remember instances where we had such a big selection that uh when the uh customer came in and yes he wanted kamato he liked the way it cooked but confronted with all these sizes and all these colors a lot of people couldn't make up their mind so they left we figured well we've got to make it easier for them to choose aardi reimagined all the possibilities soon the egg had a new tagline as the ultimate cooking experience and embarked on an aggressive brand building Journey that saw its footprint grow to over 50 countries throughout the world it including the UK European Union Mexico New Zealand Canada South Africa Israel Australia and colia a focus on Innovation brought the 2XL Minx the modular Nest system plus hundreds of new accessories designed to make live fire cooking on an egg fun entertaining and delicious well one of the amazing legacies that Ed has given us to work with of course the product the amazing Big Green Egg all the work he did developing it and then there's the name the Big Green Egg and did you know that the name is trademarked and registered in so many countries around the world and the color green by the way also has a US trademark for that color so it's really an amazing body of work that took place over all of those years and then we come forward to today where the brand has now grown into what we call the wall of green it's no longer an egg sitting in a in a dealer it's a complete wall of green a complete line of products that are presented to the customer presented to the consumer in a way that solidifies the perception of the Big Green Egg as the ultimate cooking experience with accessories with all kinds of things to keep you engaged and and really let you have fun using live fire cooking in your big green egg in all kinds of ways and the product development never stands still during our 50th anniversary year we'll reintroduce our Chima a popular item from 25 years ago now back with a contemporary new design to enhance outdoor living areas with a touch of warmth other accessories in the pipeline are sure to excite Egghead nation and will create even more opportunities to get outside side and enjoy cooking on an egg that's really what it's all about isn't it we bring friends and families together over live fire cooking to share culinary experiences and the delicious flavors that only a Big Green Egg can deliver you know Ed Fisher realized that on the sidewalk 50 years ago when he cooked up those first chicken wings and the rest as they say is history well Ed after all these years we thought we would commemorate that occasion and Ed Fisher's famous Wing sace this one's for you thanks for all you've done and we look forward to the future in 2024 another Milestone was reached as AR Irani welcome Dan gero to the Big Green Egg as President Dan is a lifelong Enthusiast of live fire cooking and brings years of experience in the business world to the company as we look back at the last 50 years as we've been doing here it is just amazing to think all that has gone into growing this brand to where we are today the efforts of Distributors around the world our dealer Network our partners and of course all the people at the Big Green Egg from day one so many of them have put energy and passion into the brand and as you look forward you just can't help but be excited you know we've got 50 years behind us but an awful lot ahead of us I have to say already what you and Ed have built over the last 50 years has been truly incredible and I am very excited about the next 50 years the future looks really bright and as they say in Show Business You Ain't Seen Nothing [Music] Yet [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: BigGreenEggHQ

Views: 17,249

Keywords: Big Green Egg, Green EGG, Kamado, Charcoal, 50th, Anniversary

Id: LnID0nCvMcE

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 06 2024