The Live Fire Report | Episode 1: German Engineering Meets Live Fire — The Grillrost Story

a look inside the people in culture, shaping barbecue and lifefire cooking around the world.

The barbecue world is often associated with fire, smoke and tradition, but behind every great cooking experience there is another discipline at work, engineering. Today's guests have built a reputation for designing some of the most innovative and thoughtfully engineered barbecue products on the market. From modular systems to problem-solving accessories that many pitmasters didn't even realize they needed, they've become synonymous with German ingenuity and craftsmanship.

Matthias, Johannes, Teresa, welcome to the lifefire report. Thank you, we are happy that we can be here.

So I have a first couple of questions about running a family business.

“Every family business has a story. How did the grill roast begin?”

So the angle of us built a grill at home and didn't know how to use it and didn't have a grill for it. So you ask Matthias who learned it or he studied it if he can't build it for him. And this is what he done and then researched in the internet and so you can know where you can buy it. So that was the idea of we can sell it, so nobody else sells it, so that's a good idea to start. Excellent. So whose crazy idea was it originally? Was his idea?

Was Matthias? Yeah, it was mine idea. Hello from me, I'm Matthias. And me and my brother, we started the business at the beginning. So I learned, I studied as a welder, I worked as a welder, my brother is an engineer, so it fits perfectly together. I welded the grill, the design and the engineering.

“So what are the advantages of building a company with your brothers and sisters with your family?”

You can ever trust each other. So you also fight a bit more than with normal employees or colleagues. But after the fight, it's clear again and you're still family and blood is bigger than, don't know how it's about. Yeah, so that's an interesting point. So when you disagree on the product, who wins? You guys are looking at each other, right?

I think it's not always a thing, like a democratic thing.

It's when somebody of us really wants to build the product and says, this is the product will hit the market. Then it's up to him to go for the chance. But if Matthias says this product will be great and all the others are against it, then if he really wants to do it, he can do it.

“So would you say that you think differently about decision making because you're a family?”

Then if you were just running a company with strangers, maybe yes. And I think a big thing is also you can make do things. They don't work, nobody would blame you that it was a mistake or that it was dumped to do it. So you give it a try, didn't work, move on. Okay, excellent. I have a couple of questions on German engineering, right? Because German engineering has become the global benchmark.

We know a lot of brands in automotive and other industries that are the whole mark of engineering and they all happen to be German. But what does that phrase actually mean inside your company? For us, this means a lot. So we have about 500 products and they are all self-deralopt and not all self-made, but they all made in Germany. And we have no distributors, so we are just selling on our online shop, but just our own products. And when, for example, I'm the constructor in our company and when I have a good idea and think it's a really good idea, then we make patents.

And so at least I have about 14 patents on our product. 14, okay. So you develop your own solutions and you own your own solutions and everything is German thought and German made. Yeah, that's important for us and also for important for our customers. So that's a very good segue to my next question.

When you start designing a new product, where do you begin?

The thing is, we always want to make something better.

We have really simple products like flavorizer bars, burner covers on a gas curl. They are normally the giant curl industry, or want to save money and build a chest out of sheet metal, thin sheet metal. And we just make them out of stainless steel. So they will last longer than the better. Yeah, we have better and that's the thing.

Okay, so the manufacturing process factors in your decision making as well, right? It's not just saying, oh, that's a good idea.

“I think what's also important is, is often the product looks simple.”

But if you see it in total, the first look at the product, what do I want to have? And then the final product, it's a long way and it's hard to make it look simple and still have the functions we wanted to have. Yeah. Exactly. So some of the most elegant solutions, they look obvious once you see them. Once the product exists already, but how difficult is it to design something that is actually simple?

Simple to use. I mean, we've seen today a lot of products that are really brilliant and simple to use. How much work is involved in making them simple? So mostly when I start with a scratch, until it gets to a product in our shop, it's about the 8/8 to 10th version. The first version we build, it comes to the, we'd rush it. And it needs a lot of versions until it gets to the market, we get into our shop.

Yeah. That's the best step, step by step, step by step. And we have a, we call it, um, krill laboratory. And there, um, I have about 50 gas and coal, charcoal crills and it's next to our office. So the workshop, the office, the, uh, krill laboratory is together. So I pass all the time when I go to the office, the laboratory.

And so I'm always thinking about the, or my product testing, making it and see how it behaves.

Yeah. So give me an example of a detail.

“Customer might never notice, but that is super important for you.”

You mean, of one product? Product, a detail on the product, something you think it will be transparent for the customers, but it was really important to you. Could be anything, could be the thickness of the metal, could be, you know, a cutout, something. Maybe that, uh, that, uh, and, no, to cut out the, uh, that's, uh, that's not what you see.

All this, that's it, that's it, that's it, that's it, that's it, that's it. That's a really important thing for us. We give on every product, we call it our krill laboratory, family warranty. So, when a plancher, for example, we, we produce and sell a lot of planchas, things you put on the gas grill. Yeah.

“And when they will bend, the customer is free to send us it back and gets a new one without speaking anything.”

But we are sure it will not bend. And a lot of planchas in the market will bend after a few uses. And for this, the moment you season it, it will bend here. Yeah. And it's not, it's not only about the planchas, it's about nearly every product.

It, we don't want any product to, to bend or to, to, yeah, to crash or while using it. So that's, uh, for the customer, it's not visible, but for us, it's hard work and, uh, a hard in the production. And that's why you give that warranty. In case something happens, which might be because they are misusing it or because the product has a defect.

The customer is always protected.

So the, um, our customers say they can pass their grill stuff from us to their children into their grandchildren. Because it's really good quality and can use it really often. Excellent. So let's talk about innovation. Innovation especially in a mature market, right?

So the barbecue industry isn't exactly a new industry. Yet grill was continues to innovate. How do you find opportunities to create something new that doesn't exist yet in a mature market?

And now, meanwhile, also to the European market, it's a fire plate.

We first, basically, adding a, uh, bra-zero capability to any non-Bra-zero grill.

Yeah, or for example, you want to do it a cheap person. You, you put, uh, old barrel, put, um, support or something on it suit or, yeah, and then you put our fire plate on it. And then you have a full fire plate grill.

“I think one thing is to focus on, on small needs and to be faster than the large brands.”

Because they have to develop it somewhere and maybe in US in India and China. Then they have to look for a manufacturer, mostly in also in eastern Asia. Bring it with ships to the, to the markets in European, in Europe, in US. And so we have to be faster to manufacture it in Europe. And yes, that's it.

So you have the idea, you engineer it, you produce it, you say it.

And we won't produce, produce, yeah. We won't sell, uh, complete gas grill. Because variable Napoleon, they are all in the market. That would be just on the additional, we would be just on the additional manufacturer against them that won't work. So we have to focus on the niche on the small markets or the small products.

Yes. So I'm going to move to the next category of questions, uh, competing against the giants. So thanks for that segue. The barbecue industry already includes some very large international brands.

“How does a company like Grillros competes against giant organizations with vastly greater resources?”

You name the couple of those brands. I think you don't compete with them. We are additional to them. So we don't sell, as you understand, a complete gas grill. But we have, we have additional things to the gas grill.

So our, our forces to say, we can make your grill better. So we look at the grill, I have from the different vendors and look what can be better. And then sell it. But not indeed huge amounts like the big player stuff. So we open up Holland and so on this.

We are selling it in smaller amounts because as Matthias, that we have 500 different products. A really a lot. And everyone has, um, so a few, so few grill and then can they look, uh, ten different additions to their grill. With every manufacturer, um, facing the same questions, how much quality can you

can your customers actually afford?

“I mean, do you sometimes have to trade off quality versus cost?”

Or what's your, what's your driver there? Never. It has to cost what quality it is. So we are thinking about new products, then we're thinking about the price. So you deliberately choose sometimes the most expensive version because that's the price of the quality.

Yeah, that exactly is sometimes also a fight between my brother, he is the engineer. He wants it to perfect solution. Sometimes I also say that's, that's too expensive for the market. Nobody wants will buy it. And yes, but that's, as I said, if he's important, if it's important for him.

So we are doing it and market doesn't buy it, then he doesn't buy it. So yeah, so do you ever feel pressure to lower quality of specifications in order to compete on price? Some years ago, I think, we were much, um, how to say. We looked on the sides every day and we said, no, no, we are too expensive. We have to lower the prices, then we have to make higher prices.

We also, we had a, and time when we said, we will give, like, 5 or 10 person discounts to our customers.

But in the last few years, we started to, to keep the focus that we never give discounts.

The price is, um, mostly stable. Of course, we have to lower or higher the prices because our products are mostly made of steel. And the market prices of steel and stainless steel are, especially with COVID. And yeah, all the prices and what's, what happens in the world, they are not that stable. So we have to, and that is, yeah.

Yeah, I heard you say that today, like, the price is the price and it's always the right price.

No, you never have this.

Um, let's talk about the future for a minute.

We're seeing more technology enter outdoor cooking every year.

“Where do you think the balance lies between technology and craftsmanship?”

You know, you have those, uh, connected barbecues and those automatic fans and everything. What's, what's the direction do you think really what's he's going to take in the future? Let's, let's see, I think we are able to, to adopt to every, uh, trend. So maybe we will also adopt the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the technique trend with. I, you said it like, personally, I think the trend will go more back to the roots, more back to fire.

So like, we see it with our fire beds, that's curling with fire with smoke with, um, yes. And regardless of technology, he's he clean. Yes, because technology.

Yes, that's, it gets more, personally, I think more, more like a microwave and then it's, it loses it character.

Can you innovate faster? Because you're independent. Yes, we can, and that's caused a lot of the family business. Because we are five, five of the family, uh, our parents, father, mother, my sister, my brother and me. And so we are, yeah.

I have an idea, we discuss it. And when my brother says, okay, with the price and, and this, all will, will be good. Then it can come to the, to the shop and then to the market. So in that thing, in a big company, there are a lot of meetings and stuff and so on. And we are sitting together and doing barbecue or doing some, some lunch.

And then we are talking about the new product. And then we say, yes, let's do it or like the Chateau critters here. We also say, let's do it and then we started. So it's really fast decisions.

“And yeah, that's what's good with our family business.”

Yeah, for example, Chateau critters, there's no budget planning before. Just we say, let's do it and then it's. Sometimes it gets more expensive, sometimes it gets cheaper. But yeah, you have to, you need that direction and then. Yeah, but so I mean, for the listeners who are not familiar with what Chateau critters is.

So this is a concentration of. You're most efficient, uh, brand ambassadors and influencers who are using your products. And their own followers and customers. So everybody can actually meet for a day and discuss and use the products. And I think from what we gathered, this is also a great feedback group for you to understand what should be developed next.

And we want to be visible for our customers. We are not a brand which just sell their products and do not care. So we are in that barbecue bubble and I think we cannot come out of it in our lives. And we are still 35 years old. So we will do it for for for long. So when people look back at grill roast 20 years from now, what do you hope they will say about the company?

I hope the same as now. But we will be still the family business. Maybe we have some more in our in our main team. I have now a little son, but it's he's just eight months old. But maybe his his daughter will also come to our company.

“I think for us it's important quality innovation and family business.”

So this are the three points for which we stand and what we also want to go on. So we do not want to lose quality or innovation. And we also want to stay in the family business like that and not change it.

And yeah, the most important thing is not to shop.

It's our it's our we have fun doing it every day. And that should be the same in 20 years or 30 years or 40 years. And maybe yes, our children will keep the fire on. Let's hope so. Today's conversation wasn't really about grills or accessories.

It was about craftsmanship, about innovation and the challenge of building products that earned their place around the fire. In a world where scale, often dominates the conversation. It's refreshing to meet people who still believe that quality, ingenuity and attention to detail matter. Thank you for joining us on the live fire report.

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