The Ace Hardware Fall Show 2023

FOGO Charcoal is proud to be an Ace Hardware Retail Partner and we are happy to have been invited to participate in the Ace Hardware Fall 2023 Trade show in Orlando, Fl.  A great time was had by all and lots of people went home with full belly’s and big smiles.  The outdoor grilling area was truly something to behold, and it only seemed like it was 120° outside.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I will get back to that in just a minute.  Let’s talk about FOGO Charcoal Company and Ace Hardware for a second.

Not only does Ace carry both FOGO Premium and Super Premium on their shelves but this year, we teamed up to offer our new, all-natural coconut husk briquets as an exclusive offering for Ace stores.  The new briquets are all natural, slow burning and create very little ash.  Many people are even using it in their kamado ceramic cookers already!

The show itself was amazing.  You could find vendors carrying everything from candy bars to chain saws. Of course, we spent our time in our indoor (air conditioned) booth showing off our charcoal, fire starters, Blazaball and our signature FOGO activated charcoal rub and seasoning.  Having Ace feature our exclusive new briquets and fun Naughty or Nice Santa Bags of Charcoal was a great way to spread the FOGO love to all of their retailers who attended.  Were you naughty this year?

Back outside in the Outdoor Grilling Area, we had the chance to catch up with lots of friends of ours.  We spoke with Josh Tahan who along with a pizzaiolo directly from Italy were cooking up some incredible pizzas in their Ooni pizza ovens.  We also spoke to Michael Lopez from Big Green Egg’s #BGETeamGreen, Al Frugoni, Joey Machado and Kosmo from Kosmo’s Q who were grilling up lots of live fire cooking creations and put on quite the show.

My buddy Freddy Jennings, aka @woodovenboston invited me over to make some pizza on the Alfa Ovens wood/coal burning pizza oven and I just couldn’t say no.  I decided to use tzatziki as the sauce and make a chicken shawarma pizza.  The sauce was then layered with chicken shawarma slices, house pickled red onions and mozzarella balls.  It was so good that even the pro himself had to declare that it was wicked awesome.  Now if that doesn’t scream New England,  don’t know what does.

As for the rest of the grilling area, there was something for everyone.  From Ninja Wood Fired ovens to Messermeister knives there was a ton to see.  Blackstone griddles were griddling away, pellet grills like Traeger grills and RecTec Grills were well represented and everyone was happy to show what their cookers could do.  Even our friends from Smoke Your Bourbon had tasty offerings for the crowd,  I really want another filet mignon crostini right now!

As I have said before, FOGO is very proud to be an Ace Hardware Retail Partner and we are already looking forward to an even bigger show next year.  You can find FOGO products in all Ace locations.  If they do not stock it, simply ask them to bring it in as it is already in all of their warehouses. 

That is all that I have to say about that.  We hope you enjoy the video.  Always get out and grill and we look forward to seeing you again the next time on, The FOGO Life!