Scotch: Current favorite- The Arran (anything by them), Glenmorangie 12yr Lasanta, sherry cask finished. The Balvenie Double Wood, also like Oban 18yr, and The Glenlivet Nadurra (Oloroso sherry cask finished) among others. Neat please.
About meReal name: Aaron
Location: Farwell, Michigan - near Clare (dead center of lower peninsula).
Occupation:
Healthcare- Licensed & Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) at MyMichigan Health, a University of Michigan Health System.
Regarding quality of their products products tanking, can't say I agree with that. Although my experience is with products from a few years ago. If product decline is in fact true now, that's a shame.
Side note, their seasonings are very very good good.
On a recent cook I decided to use the included temp probe that came with my Woodridge Pro to see how it aligned with Thermoworks probe. Throughout the cook the Traeger probe was consistently high by as much as 20 degrees. Traeger in its infinite engineering wisdom removed probe calibration from the Woodridge model.
I’m awaiting the day buying this turns into a $1200 mistake. My fault for basing my decision on advice of ambassadors and influencers instead of actual users.
Surprising, now that Traeger own Meater any included probes should have got better not worse? Traeger seem to have Traeger Meater probes and Meater probes and the two are not interchangeable although at one point Meater UK say they were working towards commonality on this. In regards to Traeger the vast majority of people seem to be reliant on third party temperature probes whether wired or not?
While Traeger makes an easy target, probably due to name recognition, what they're experiencing is an industry wide situation. As noted, MAC went under a couple months ago, Recteq changed it's marketing from direct sales only to now being sold through dealers/big box as well, and earlier this year Pit Boss laid off more than half their staff. There are probably other companies who've pulled back on their business models and are showing less profit or more losses, but they just aren't as publicized for us to see. It's a market shift from the "glory days" driven by the pandemic flood of interest/need in cooking at home to a more comparatively restrained market. I would be interested in seeing financials on the newly combined Weber/Blackstone alliance. I suspect they are contracting as well despite high brand recognition.
Years ago I was searching for a patio heater and found out that Cuisinart was not even a shell of it's former self. They auctioned off the name to different specific consumer areas to the highest bidders and consumer be damned, quality was not a factor in the purchase.
Back in the day I was a co-owner in a media company that promoted fishing and hunting and we saw the demise of that industry to our own peril. When manufacturers try to 'pay you' in product and not $$, it's clear that the industry is tanking. So we closed down the company and watched the dumpster fire from afar.
Consolidation and tight margins make industry wide outcomes (good or bad) much quicker than ever before.
Interesting, someone mentioned Matt Pitman from Meat Church. I noticed over the last year or so, he seems to have moved away from his Traeger product placements. He does still show them on occasion, but I've seen him using other smokers a lot more than it seemed he used to.
The most abrupt example of a switch that I saw was Malcom Reed / How To BBQ Right. He was very clearly sponsored by Traeger, then literally overnight, they all vanished and were replaced by Grilla Silverbacs in both of his filming locations. And of course, lol, not a single mention....it was as if the Silverbacs had been there all along.
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