Grill Dog on a Roll
New Product Provides Missing Link for the Dedicated BBQ’er
June 24, 2009

One good turn deserves another. That’s the old axiom that boosted Grill Dog into national prominence on the Today Show and in Men’s Journal during the last few months. (Not a bad start for a product that’s been available at retail for less than two years!)

The Grill Dog is a stainless steel linked meat cooker that sits atop a standard barbecue grill, rotating hot dogs, sausage, brats, etc. and thus eliminating the need to tend the fire and flip the meat. In test runs at Lowe’s in the U.S. and Wal-Mart in Canada, the Grill Dog was a sellout
success.

“Lowe’s tested one of our three models in 700 U.S. stores and it sold out in eight weeks,” says Jim Sheridan. “Now they have us working up a floor display for a full rollout next year.”

The Grill Dog Hot Dog Cooker is easy to clean and frees up grill space.

Sheridan adds that the Lowe’s Grill Dog was the model that adapts easily to barbecues that already have a rotisserie motor. The company offers 100 percent refunds if the unit does not work on an existing grill, but after a year no one has reported any issues.

Grill Dog also has a unit that includes a motor for barbecues that do not have a rotisserie. This was the one sold in the Canadian Wal-Marts. According to Sheridan, this Grill Dog met with great success in a 120-store test, and now Wal-Mart also has asked him to gear up for a nationwide
rollout in 2010.

The unit turning heads among tailgaters is the Grill Dog that comes with a rechargeable motor that works with a NiCad battery. It will spin continuously for 8 hours on a single charge, making it ideal for parking lot partying.

“I went to Penn State where we did a lot of tailgating,” says Sheridan. “The original idea behind the Grill Dog was as a tailgate or backyard item. What we’ve found with the rechargeable model is that it is extremely popular with outdoorsmen—people who hunt, fish and go camping.”

The Grill Dog comes in options including a rechargable battery operated motor.

The product is easy to clean and designed to free up grill space for big parties. The company prices at or close to keystone and offers free freight for a case of six to help beef up the retailer’s bottom line.

“The bottom line for consumers is convenience,” Sheridan adds. “You don’t have to stand there and turn the link meat. We took the same apparatus yo see in a convenience store and applied it to the barbecue grill. And we patented the product, so you know no one else out there will have anything like it.”