Another reason not to buy Match Light, Instant Light Charcoal: Very High Price of Convenience

Kingsford knows what most consumer product companies know: consumers will pay for convenience. But the question is, does the consumer know just how much they're paying?

The answer is, not likely - and they are almost guaranteed to be paying a lot more than they think.

First, Kingsford, like all the other charcoal manufacturers, plays some games with the package sizes, so it's hard to directly compare regular charcoal with instant light. For instance, most sell regular charcoal in 20lb, 10lb and 5lb sizes - but, instant light is sold in 15lb, 8lb and 4lb sizes.

Kingsford has actually taken this game a little further, as they've recently donwsized all their bags by 10%. So for Kingsford products, you'll find 18, 9 and 4.5 lb bags for regular charcoal and 13.5, 7.2 and 3.6 lb bags of instant. Unless you're quick with a calculator or one of those shoppers that can find and read the store supplied info on the shelf tag, good luck trying to figure out what you're paying per pound.

If you do go to the trouble, you'll find that the average retial price per pound (in grocery stores) of Match Light, Kingsford's instant light brand, is about 60% higher than Kingsford regular charcoal. The premium per pound is highest for the larger size packages and lowest for the smaller ones. A similar pricing arrangement holds true for the generic brands.

60% seems like a pretty steep premium to pay for the convenience of not having to buy lighter fluid and squirt some on your briquettes. But wait, I'm not done yet.

To fully understand what premium you're paying, you need to consider what instant light briquettes are - they're basically regular briquettes with lighter fluid added. It's that word "added" that most consumers fail to consider, or more accurately, fail to consider the implications.

The implications start with realizing that the instant light briquettes weigh more than the regular briquettes. That's right, the added lighter fluid make the instant briquettes weigh more. How much more? About 12% more. You'll get close to 16 briquettes per pound of Kingsford regular charcoal - but only 14 for Match Light.

So not ony are people paying more per pound for Match Light, they're getting fewer briquettes per pound!

Now if you do the math, you'll discover the true premium being charged (and people are paying) for the convenience of not having to purchase and squirt lighter fluid. It is up to 90% per briquette!

Add the fact that you are stuck with that awful smell and taste of lighter fluid, and you have a very good reason for avoiding Match Light or other instant light brands.

Kingsford Charcoal - Good or Bad?

Outdoor grilled food is enjoyed by just about everyone from all walks of life. Most of these people would agree that cooking over charcoal produces the best tasting meals.

Growing up, my father used Kingsford. It's what I bought in college and whenever I cooked with charcoal. Since I can remember, Kingsford charcoal has been the standard and considered the premium brand available in stores. Many backyard chefs would contend that the Kingsford brand is the best available.

However, the purests/connaisseurs would regard Kingsford as inferior - in fact, many consider it a crappy product. They contend Kingsford puts in too much filler and too many other additives incorporated into the mixture to make them fast lighting, high heat and/or long burning.

So who is right?

Truth be told, you can't have everything. There are four primary qualities of a briquette and each are inter-dependent: ease of lighting, temperature output, duration of burn and, of course, flavor. Tweak the composition of a briquette to affect one of these qualities, and you'll also affect one or more of the others. Add too much sodium nitrate (used to make briquettes light more easily) and the briquette doesn't burn as long. Add more filler to make them burn longer and you alter the taste and/or produce more ash (another quality important to some). Etc., etc.

So Kingsford makes charcoal briquettes much like Budweiser makes beer. (Or like Nabisco makes crackers, etc., etc.). They mass produce a product that has been designed to appeal to the mainstream consumer. It's a good product, but maybe not great according to many measures. In this case, Kingsford has perfected a formula that balances the qualities that cosumers want from a briquet. These aren't products that are going to satisfy everyone - so they aim at the largest population.

Is there anything wrong with that? No, not really. We as consumers are content to compromise what we want, as long as we get what we expect. So is Kingsford charcoal good or bad? It depends on what you're expecting. It also depends on what your options are, so as will most products, it's a relative thing.