What's up grillers!!!!!!!!!
Can you all believe the weather that we are having over the last few days and weeks? I've been cart wheeling around my deck and smokin and searin up a storm, from fish to foul, steak to cake, doing it all griller style and dropping it down into low gear with high enthusiasm, go figure coming from yours truly! LOL! Well, this post has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks because this post is as much about the man as it is about the product he invented, not to mention the great team of guys I had the pleasure of meeting down in Orlando at the recent HPBA Show.
The company is called Looft Lighter, the man behind the product is Richard Looft! Both the product and the man intrigued me, fascinated me, not to mention blew my mind with what is going to become known as the sexiest, smartest and most practical natural lump charcoal electric starter that the bbq industry has ever seen and yes grillers, you heard it from the grateful one first! At least in Canada!
If the Looftlighter would have been around when Mick Jagger penned the words to "Start Me Up", this hot little tool would have been his motivation for the tune but more on this later. I enjoyed every minute I spent with these guys and I was not only sold on the product after seeing it demonstrated numerous times, but I was so impressed with the way this company presented itself in what was probably the smallest booth space at the show but the impact from the passion, authenticity and story from this company could be felt across the convention centre! The moment I connected with Richard, St.John, Nisse and crew I knew I was surrounded by guys who like myself, loved what they were doing as we carried on like a bunch of court jesters, laughing and sharing stories of food, family, friends, music and occasionally pausing to try and compose serious faces to talk shop or as I like to refer to it as passion!
Looft's story is incredible and one that a book could probably and will probably be written about some day, but in a nut shell, Richard got mad one day when chicken he was bbq'ing got ruined and tasted like lighter fluid! This former theatre director started thinking and the more he thought the more he became convinced that there was a greener and easier way to start the bbq. The mad scientist in him kicked in and with the help of a toaster, some coal and reverse airflow from a vacuum cleaner he soon realized the coal was ready to use in a few short minutes!
2003 saw the first prototype created and presented to the Swedish Inventor's Association and by 2005 Looft Industries Ltd. was established. By 2006 the first 5000 Looftlighter's landed in Stockholm and then the man behind the company knocked on the best retail doors to show off his product only to be ignored! Being the driven, passionate soul he is he fought fire with fire so to speak and parked himself outside these retail venues and asked for 60 seconds of time from each of the them and the rest grillers is history as they say.
Today Looftlighter is being sold as the leading edge devise of its kind to safely start both charcoal bbq's and fireplaces and is sold right across Scandinavia, over ten countries in the E.U. and you guessed it, LooftLighter has landed on terra firma right here in North America and for the record, The Grateful Griller is ecstatic!!!!!
Richard and team! The Grateful Griller congratulates you on your vision and I really look forward to helping you spread your message and awesome story to the masses of grateful griller's out there who need your product, big time! Here's to our next steak and pint together where ever we are in this world, keep on grillin!
Before I bid you goodnight fellow grillers, as you should expect by now, I share with you some Grateful Griller speak inspired tonight by none other than The Rolling Stones and my new found friends at Looft! Lyrics respectfully borrowed from the Stones and altered by The Grateful Griller.
Grateful Grillers Looft Really Start's Me Up!
If you start me up
If you start me up, I'll never stop.
You'll be runnin hot "K", so fast,
you might just blow your top.
These other gadjets can make a grown man cry.
Throw out the oil, the gasoline,
we'll be cookin smooth and clean with our new Looft machine.
Press on that starter,
I'm given you all I got.
No other riders keepin up to this heat!
Looft's gonna rough it up,
as it fires up our passion to cook and create together "K".
This grown man cries no more, eyes like dinner plates.
My lips are clean, my hands aren't greasy,
thanks to our new Looft machine.
So just fire me up,
give it all I got.
Looft's gonna teach us how to ride the wind at double speed,
taken us places we've never ever been.
Dreaming about the day we never stop,
chillin, grillin, never spillin while we're fillin our bellies with food and joy!
feed that fire and the desire to always take it higher........
GG
