Winnipeg inventor gets boost from ‘As seen on TV’ legend

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/11/2015 (3804 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After slaving over a hot Korean barbeque for more than three years, it’s finally time to eat for Phil Poetker.

Thursday is the official launch of the Nutrigrill, a unique tabletop Korean barbeque Winnipeg inventor Poetker and his partner, Barry Belog, have developed into what they hope will become the next kitchenware sensation.

Think of this generation’s George Foreman Grill.

With more than 5,000 Nutrigrills already sold from just a passive online presence on Facebook and Amazon and occasional retail availability, it’s ready to hit the big time.

“I’ve not been getting much sleep lately,” Poetker said on the eve of a public launch event scheduled for Winnipeg Thursday. “For the past 31/2 years, all the money has been going north… this is the time (to start making money).”

And now the organization is in place.

Their development team includes Kevin Harrington, the Florida-based “father” of the infomercial who’s helped create more than US$4 billion worth of sales of items such as Ginsu Knives, the Food Saver and the NuWave Oven.

Harrington, who is legendary in the business, is very selective about the products he works with.

Among other things, he has to believe they have the potential to do at least $100 million in business.

“I look for unique problem-solving products, unique enough such that there is no other product that solves that problem in exactly similar fashion,” Harrington said in a recent telephone interview from his Florida office. “Nutrigrill fits that for sure.”

The ceramic-surface electric grill is styled after an ancient Asian cooking technique. The two-tier design has the heat element concentrated on the top tier for grilling meat or anything else. Vegetables or noodles or broth-based foods can be cooked at the same time in a lower-level moat at lower temperatures.

Poetker believes the kind of healthy, fast, family-friendly cooking the Nutrigrill promotes will be in demand by everyone from college students to seniors.

A 30-minute infomercial with full production values is about to hit the airwaves in the U.S. next week. The direct-retail TV (DRTV) spots will kick off a co-ordinated sales campaign that, if successful, could give the Nutrigrill access to 80,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The infomercial features New York celebrity chef Donatella Arpaia and fitness guru Brett Hoebel.

Arpaia is the head judge on Iron Chef America, a frequent contributor to the Today show and other U.S. network shows as well as the Home Shopping Network, where she promotes her own line of products. She is also the co-owner of two New York restaurants.

The Nutrigrill is the first product she has endorsed other than her own HSN line of cookware and prepared foods, and she is not taking it lightly.

“It is a great product and really fills a need,” she said in a recent phone interview while negotiating traffic in New York. “It’s true to my brand and who I am — a busy working mother and a chef.”

Poetker sought her out more than a year ago, and she said the two hit it off.

“Like anything else, it starts with the person behind it,” she said. “And I really believe in Phil.”

Over the last 20 years, Poetker developed about 47 different products, such as a shovel attachment called the Motus Grip that eases pressure on the back. He’s been successful enough to be able to pursue his work at his own pace over the years, but nothing he’s done before comes close to the scale and potential of the Nutrigrill.

“The goal is pretty ambitious,” he said.

The past year has been spent working out the kinks, such as getting their Chinese manufacturing tooled up, designing a few different packaging versions, creating some high-margin add-on accessories and lining up the big-time celebrity endorsers

“We’ve not been spinning our wheels,” he said. “It’s been an education.”

Signing up with Harrington meant he had to have control of a lot of moving parts. For example, he’s now produced about 25,000 units of the $159 basic grill package.

But if the DRTV takes off, it will mean Poetker will have to access much greater inventory volumes.

“We’ve got production capability now, so that within 30 days we can get up the 25,000 units per month without new tooling or expansion,” Poetker said.

There’s a call centre in Toledo, Ohio, in place and fulfilment warehouses in Connecticut and Arizona.

And he’ll be manning mall kiosks that will be up by the weekend at St. Vital Centre, Portage Place and Garden City Shopping Centre.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca