Stats to Savor as Summer Grilling Heats Up

The temps are rising, and summer holidays are approaching, which only means one thing: It’s grilling season. About 56% of Americans grilled for Memorial Day in 2021, according to Statista, but the most popular holiday for grilling, at 68%, was Fourth of July. To better understand the seasonal demand for backyard barbecue products, AdAdapted, a shopping list marketing and insights platform that helps connect brands with shoppers, conducted a year-over-year analysis and ranked the top items in multiple categories based on shopper list data. Click through for five of the biggest takeaways.

Transactions including summer grilling items—such as burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, ketchup, buns, mayo, mustard and more—peak in July, AdAdapted found. Generally, spikes happen around Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day, but the company noted that Labor Day is the least-pronounced spike. There is also a lead-up spike in August as shoppers do “end of summer” grilling, AdAdapted said. “Ketchup tends to be the most popular grilling-adjacent item throughout the year, while potato salad’s share of list presence grows in the summer,” it said.

The five items most frequently added to the lists of shoppers who purchased hot dogs are hot dog buns (unsurprisingly), chili, brats, burgers and baked beans. “Hot-dog shoppers are also likely to add easy-to-prepare items popular with children,” AdAdapted said. Those items include chicken nuggets, fries, mac and cheese and tater tots. There is generally heavy crossover between meats, buns, condiments, sides, beverages and s’mores items, AdAdapted added.

The items most frequently bought with hamburgers include burger buns, brats, hot dogs, fries and potato salad. AdAdapted noted that burger shoppers have a higher propensity to add grilling-related items to their lists than hot-dog shoppers and that in 2021, burgers spent eight out of 12 months at add-to-list levels higher than 2019.

The top five meat and vegetarian brands, in order, according to AdAdapted are Jimmy Dean, Beyond, Impossible, Johnsonville and Boca. Beyond, AdAdapted said, is edging out Impossible on lists: “Beyond became popular on lists sooner (ramping up in summer 2019), whereas Impossible grew throughout 2020 and spiked in 2021.” AdAdapted finds that meat alternatives experience some seasonal popularity in the summer but peak early in the year, perhaps due to New Year’s resolutions, it said.

AdAdapted finds the top five condiments are ketchup, ranch, mayonnaise, mayo and mustard, but the top condiment brands are Miracle Whip, Frank’s Red Hot, Kraft, Tabasco and Hellmann’s. “While ketchup tends to be the most popular item throughout the year, Miracle Whip leads condiment brands during the summer grilling months,” it said.