烧烤APP势头正猛

美国人对烧烤的热爱一如既往，跨越文化和时代。然而现如今，后院里越来越多的烧烤大师傅一手执钳，一手紧握智能手机应用程序。感谢新一代“智能烤架”，让人们可以坐在屋子里甚至是汽车里细心料理，让烤肉慢慢飘香。

Traeger是烧烤界新秀，这家位于盐湖城的烤架制造商生产的木屑颗粒电动烤架售价800美元起，承诺“数控对流”加热。该公司的首席执行官杰里米·安德鲁斯表示，基于手机应用程序的烹饪方式给人们带来了方便，甚至还带来了社交网络元素：“应用程序中包含游戏模式，就像骑自行车时使用[里程跟踪应用程序] Strava一样。你可以登录进去，看看附近谁烤的肋排最多。”

Traeger不是唯一一家瞄准高科技烧烤的公司。豪华型烧烤用品制造商Lynx的高端型号售价高达10,000美元，提供iOS和Android版本的SmartGrill应用程序，而生产固定型三脚式烧烤碳炉的Char-Broil提供带有SmartChef Smoker应用程序的电子烤架。

根据Statista的数据,这些手机应用都出现在烧烤买家的购买习惯发生缓慢变化之际——这批消费者为2016年的美国市场贡献了15亿美元。该研究公司指出，燃气烤架占各类烤架的64％，相对受欢迎程度下降了3％，而熏制烤架和木质颗粒烤架分别上升了7％和9％。（财富中文网）

本文原载于《财富》杂志2019年6月刊。

译者：Agatha

Americans’ love of grilling is strong as ever, crossing cultures and generations. But these days, a growing number of backyard barbecue chefs are clutching a smart phone app alongside their tongs. Thanks to a new generation of “smart grills,” it’s possible to tend slow-roasting slabs of meat from inside the house or even from your car.

Among the barbecue upstarts is Traeger, a Salt Lake-based maker of wood pellet powered grills that start at $800 and promise “digitally controlled convection” heating. According to CEO Jeremy Andrus, app-based cooking offers convenience and even a social networking element: “There’s a gamification angle like what cyclists have with [distance tracking app] Strava. You can check in and see who in the neighborhood is cooking the most ribs.”

Traeger is not the only one targeting high tech grill meisters. Luxury barbecue maker Lynx, whose high end model tops $10,000, offers a SmartGrill app for iOS and Android, while Char-Broil—whose tripod charcoal cookers are a backyard fixture—is offering digital grills that come with a “SmartChef Smoker App.”

All of this comes amid a slow change in the purchasing habits of barbecue buyers, who contributed to an annual U.S. market worth $1.5 billion in 2016, according to Statista. The research company notes that the relative popularity of gas barbecues, which accounted for 64% of all grills, declined by 3% while smokers and wood pellet grills were up by 7% and 9% respectively.

This article originally appeared in the June 2019 issue of Fortune.