The Challenges of Introducing a New Product.

“The Fireboard story includes obviously our products, all of our manufacturing and things that we’re doing to create really good products. But it’s also some of the struggles with operating a business.”

As the quote from the above video by FireBoard CEO and Founder, Ted Conrad implies, FireBoard is a company rich in resources, but, certainly not without some struggles! Many FireBoard products are built in-house at FireBoard HQ and whenever in-house manufacturing isn’t possible, they are USA sourced whenever feasible. However, some FireBoard products contain items and parts manufactured overseas. And this has introduced a new challenge to the FireBoard Story recently!

A few years ago, an idea was hatched by the R&D team, led by product designer, Paul Skelton. As an avid Weber Kettle user, he dreamed of controlling the Kettle using FireBoard Drive technology. After years of research, development, prototypes, testing, and testing and even more testing… The FireBoard Ring was born! It’s a set-on appliance with an integrated fan which blows air into a circular hollow chamber that directs the airflow down into the Kettle bowl. It’s awesome!

But, hold on! As challenging as the R&D was, ultimately, the manufacturing and importing has been an even bigger overall challenge!

Paul worked hard to source the extruded aluminum structure of the Ring from domestic suppliers. This proved difficult as USA based suppliers weren’t able to build at a small scale and still be cost effective for the end user. Thus, sourcing from overseas became a necessity. So, what’s the challenge?

Tariffs.

At the time of development, sourcing products from overseas incurred a tariff, but a manageable one. That was taken into account at the beginning. However, changes were coming! Tariffs started going up. And up. And up! And in conjunction with that, an “anti-dumping” tariff was introduced. This tariff prevented overseas manufacturers from just exporting a lot of specific material into the US. And, as fate would have it, extruded aluminum was subject to this tariff.

After a discussion with legal professionals, it was determined that FireBoard could import a full finished product that wouldn’t be subject to this anti-dumping tariff. This works in our favor! Right?! All we need to do is find suppliers to manufacture the entire Ring assembly and ship us the finished product. Problem solved!

Not so fast!

While work was going on to pivot in this direction, administration changes now imposed high tariffs on FINISHED goods coming from overseas! So, the pivot from PARTS to a FINISHED product introduced a massive issue. FireBoard was unable to import these products with a tariff rate that could be absorbed by the general public. There were 500 units produced without a place to send them.

Step in the international FireBoard distributors.

Fortunately for FireBoard, and the Ring as a product, other countries don’t currently have the tariff situation that exists in the USA. So, places like Smoker Broker in Canada, BBQ Europe in Prague, BBQ Pro in New Zealand and Harp in Australia, have now been importing the Ring into their respective countries.

Hopefully, the Ring will make its way to the US in the coming months. It’s a situation that is constantly being monitored. The Ring is a great product and deserves its time in the limelight!

Stay tuned to our social, email and web channels for the latest information and thanks for taking interest in the FireBoard story!