UK sees soaring BBQ sales

With the first warm Bank Holiday of the year, an urge comes over the male of the human species, particularly if he happens to be English. Forgetting the debacles of previous years, he again embarks on a perilous exercise intended to elicit the envy of males and the cooing praise of females. In spring, a young man's fancy turns to barbecue.

Everyone's does. Supermarkets are reporting soaring sales of barbecues and related products. Over the next two days, Tesco expects to sell: a million bags of charcoal; 250,000 chicken wings, drums and thighs; 3.5 million sausages; 12 million bottles and cans of beer; and 600,000 tubs of ice cream.

Homebase has reported a 20 per cent rise in demand for barbecues since the same time last year, while John Lewis has seen sales rise by 90 per cent in the past week. Waitrose is expecting sales of its barbecues to be up by 25 per cent on last Easter. And Homebase expects to sell enough gas this week "to fuel 300,000 barbecues".

Source : Christopher Hirst - The Independent
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/dont-go-for-the-burn-the-fine-art-of-the-barbecue-2271989.html