B&B Briquettes, $9.97 at Wal-mart

[Murdy]

What the title says: B&B Briquettes, $9.97 at Wal-mart, 17.6 pounds.

[Lynn Dollar]

That's the every day price at Academy.

And Walmart is no longer selling the original B&B Oak briquettes. They're selling a new formulation, its Oak and Hickory briquettes. The orginal can still be found at Academy.

I'll let Tom Horsman explain, but it appears Duraflame, who bought B&B a couple years ago, is making changes, surprise , surprise

[jlazar]

I got 3 bags of the original oak at Academy yesterday.

[Lynn Dollar]

And a Horsman retest

[Finster]

I get that. It just seemed to me he presented it as they were trying to hide something. They changed the packaging and said it was new formula.

[Finster]

I'd be more concerned with them stating that the formula that was packaged as oak actually contained other wood types as well..that seems more disingenuous to me..

[RichieB]

I could be mistaken but I thought he said he asked what was different and they avoided a concise answer. IMO the weight change is clearly something that changes the aspect of a cook.

[Donw]

Not being political and looking at this strictly from a business perspective there is currently a 25% tariff on Mexican manufactured charcoal briquettes. Looks like a business decision to save import fees which I can understand no matter the marketing speak.

[Lynn Dollar]

That makes a heap load of sense.

[Murdy]

Moving to domestic production to avoid tariffs is certainly a business decision that makes sense, but that appears to be a separate issue from changing the formula to make a less dense briquette, which was likely also a business decision (i.e., likely a cheaper product with more room for mark up).

[Donw]

I agree. Through their past sales at places like Academy. Walmart, etc they have set a historical price point that people accept as a value at least when on sale. While they are saving the tariff cost by moving their manufacturing back into the US, they still have increased manufacturing costs to deal with thus the new recipe. Similar to the ‘Shrinkflation’ many industries turned to several years ago. As the videos showed, less burn time for the same price. Just my 2¢.

[tstalafuse]

FWIW, A week ago I tried to order 3 bags and within an hour Wal-mart cancelled the order. No reason given, so I am assuming they are out of stock even though the web pages shows it to be available in stock, which could just be my area of the country vs someone elses area.

[Steve R.]

Try brickseek.com which will show you the real-time inventory levels of Walmart and maybe a few other stores. It's obviously not 100% reliable, but I have found it to be pretty close.

[JeffJ]

Did they change the formula to the orange bag of competition briquettes?