Casual Living Trends: National Survey Shows Most American Grill Owners Have Recently...

Casual Living Trends: National Survey Shows Most American Grill Owners Have
Recently Created or Improved Their Outdoor Rooms

PALATINE, Ill., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- More than half of America's grill
owners who have an outdoor room (57 percent) have spent money on creating,
renovating, or updating their outdoor rooms during the last three years,
according to the latest annual Weber GrillWatch Survey(TM), the nation's first
and most comprehensive objective, third-party study on why, where, when, and
how Americans grill and entertain outdoors.

For those grill owners who earn $100,000 or more annually, the percentage of
those creating or improving upon their outdoor space within the last three
years bumps up to a whopping 67 percent.

The Weber GrillWatch Survey also shows that the majority of these outdoor room
owners (59 percent) plan to use their outside area more this year compared to
last--while 31 percent plan to spend "about the same" amount of time in them
as 2008.

When asked why they plan to spend more time in their outdoor rooms this
season, respondents cited "more entertainment plans with family and friends"
(33 percent), "eating out less and grilling or cooking more at home" (17
percent), and "because it (the outside space) is new or newly renovated" and
"to spend more time outdoors" (both 16 percent each).

A little-known term only a few years ago, the "outdoor room" is characterized
by the casual living industry as a defined outside eating, entertaining, and
cooking area.

Methodology
Weber-Stephen Products Co. commissioned third-party Greenfield Online and
KeyStat Marketing, Inc. to field the 20th Annual Weber GrillWatch Survey. A
total of 1,000 grill owners throughout the United States completed the online
survey earlier this year.

All respondents were over age 21 and own a charcoal, gas or electric outdoor
barbecue grill or smoker. The sample was divided between 50 percent males
(n=500) and 50 percent females (n=500) and was balanced demographically to
represent households across the U.S.

SOURCE Weber Grills

Sherry L. Bale, +1-224-836-2724, sbale@weberstephen.com, or Melanie Hill,
+1-224-836-2778, mhill@weberstephen.com, both of Weber