Is Australia the barbecue hotspot of the world?

According to the latest Roy Morgan Research data, almost two-thirds of Australian households own a barbecue. In certain places, this figure rises to more than three-quarters of households, with country South Australia emerging as the nation’s highest-density barbecue-owning region, just ahead of the ACT.

In 2015, 5.8 million Aussie households had a barbecue (63.7% of total households), an increase of some 400,000 households since 2011, when 63.2% of households had one. In country SA —Australia’s barbecue heartland — the figure rises to 75.6% of households, followed closely by the ACT (73.5%) and country WA (71.2%).

While barbecue ownership tends to be above average in rural households, capital-city households hover slightly below average, with Melbourne having the lowest rate of barbecue ownership (60.1%). 

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), January–December 2015 (n=15,637).

During 2015, 347,000 Australian households reported buying a new barbecue at some point in the preceding 12 months, and 249,000 households reported that they intended to buy one at some point in the coming 12 months.

Barbecue-buying intention is highest in ACT (3.8%) and Brisbane (3.4%) households, while barbecue ownership does not look set to grow quite as much in Melbourne and Hobart (both 2.0%).

Andrew Price, General Manager – Consumer Products, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Along with beer, beaches and sport, the barbecue is central to classic (and, admittedly, clichéd) notions of Australian identity, reaching its zenith with Paul Hogan’s famously ‘ocker’ TV advertisement urging the world to put another shrimp on the barbie. So the fact that barbecue ownership is so widespread among Aussie households is no surprise. Nor is the fact that Australian-born Aussies are 50% more likely than their Asian-born counterparts to live in a household with a barbecue in it.

“As detailed above, rural households are generally more likely than their capital-city counterparts to have a barbecue. Of course, it is worth remembering that a greater proportion of capital-city dwellers than country Australians live in smaller properties such as apartments and terrace houses, where owning a barbecue may not always be practical.

“Retailers keen to attract householders intending to buy a barbecue in the next 12 months would do well to identify the candidates in their area most likely to be in the market for a barbie and then tailor their communications to appeal to this target group. With the help of Roy Morgan Single Source’s in-depth consumer data, they stand an even greater chance of hitting the bull’s eye in this respect!”