American Craftsmanship – Current Lead Times & Updates
Our staff members, family, and friends have been diligent in helping us
These last six months have been an interesting time for the world and our company alike. As early spring introduced America to the foreshadowing of the ambiguous months ahead, as usual, we were gearing up for the warm weather barbecue season. However, what we could not have planned for was the sharp rise in families suddenly cooking at home and the simultaneous spike in demand for our products. Indeed, we are extremely humbled by the support from our dealers and the choice of consumers to seek out our products, spending their hard-earned money during times such as these.
With mounting orders and inherently longer lead times, our teams went to work on policies to keep our staff safe and began to face the challenge of our supply chain that would be impacted. By implementing workplace distancing and incisive safety measures early on, we have been fortunate to keep production at full capacity. As a result, production has steadily increased at a record pace in the last several months. Our staff members, family, and friends have been diligent in helping us find creative ways to continue to work the backlog down to more manageable levels. Their dedication to the increased demand and overcoming new challenges has been nothing short of amazing. We are extremely proud of our team and are quite lucky to have such an excellent group of people to work through these challenges.
We understand the newly expanded lead times are not exactly ideal, and understandably caused frustration among our customers. Our teams have fought through most of the supply chain issues and continue to work weekly to reduce lead times. Our strategies have strengthened partnerships with our suppliers and we have added new suppliers over the last several months to create adequate redundancies to keep our manufacturing lines running. Currently, all shortages have been resolved for the remainder of the year and we are highly focused in 2021 and beyond. For example, covers have been a real issue for many customers. However, we are happy to report we will have this resolved by the end of November and we will have ample inventory moving forward.
Freight has also become an issue over the last several months in terms of predictable delivery times for both incoming and outgoing shipments. We are seeing a slight improvement here and are hopeful this improves as demand levels out. This should allow the freight companies to staff appropriately and begin to regain some normalcy. It remains highly likely that delays will be encountered once we hand the products over for delivery, but rest assured we are working together with our freight companies to minimize these occurrences.
We deeply appreciate everyone’s support and patience as we work to keep up with demand. We are thankful for all our hardworking staff members, dealers, our families, friends, and all of the people along the way that have made our brand what it is today. Most of all we thank our customers — we could not do what we do without you!
Thanks. You guys should be proud. You’ve brought families together in a crazy time. You make a quality product and I am super proud to have acquired a Yoder YS480 this year. As soon as we can finish our deck and patio (no wood available to finish), we are ordering a Wichita!!! Can’t wait!!! Again thanks for such great products!!
I have no problem, waiting for a high quality product…. I’m proud to be picking up my Yoder within the next 12 hrs!!!! Thank you for being America Strong!
I just wanted to thank every single employee for making such a great quality product. Several of my friends had Yoders and i bought my first a YS640S on a comp cart back in May. I can’t express enough the quality and craftsmanship that goes in to these smokers, the attention to details at every aspect is great. It’s great to see and own a great quality AMERICAN product that is so versatile to accommodate vast cooking options. Weather your slow smoking brisket or searing steak to making some breakfast on the cast iron griddle these machines are the real deal. I’m hooked…. I’m sold… so much I ordered a YS1500S which isn’t due until mid January. And that’s fine because I have no problem waiting for that AMERICAN made quality. Please keep up the great work!
Again I thank every employee at Yoder for making my backyard parties… celebrations… and weekend hanging out get togethers such a great success. Dan-O @ 920BBQ
Thank you very much. We are grateful for our customers patience during these trying times. Our people work very hard to make sure every smoker that goes out the door is something we can be proud to have made and you can be proud to own.
I finally pulled the trigger and ordered my first offset. I went with the fully loaded Wichita. And I’ve got to say I’m beyond excited and trying to remind myself that patience is a virtue. I appreciate all the work y’all are putting in and I hope everyone is staying safe in these difficult circumstances.
I can’t thank the Yoder family enough for providing high quality AMERICAN made products. I bought my Yoder 640 in the summer of 2014. It has given me years of great services and has provided unbelievable food for way to many gatherings to count. I also have to commend Yoder for staying true to their customers and making upgrades that have been made to their new models available for us that have been using their products for years. Yes, my 7 year old smoker sports the new FireBoard controller and fans as well as the new ceramic igniter. The only think I am disappointed in is myself as I didn’t order it on the competition cart. If that is a debate for you then just get the cart!
What this all leads up to is that I just ordered a second 640S Competition for our Cabin. I ordered from Sam’s Northwest BBQ in Sherwood, OR which was the same place I purchased from in 2014. They have 5 trucks delivering smokers over the next 4 months and all the competition carts are sold out until their 4th truck which won’t come until mid March. You know what….. I don’t care. This product is well worth the 200 mile drive and 2 1/2 month delivery time. The demand is only a testament to their superior product.
Thank you Yoder Team!
I’ve been waiting for a few weeks now for an order that was being shipped March 1 2021. I bought my Yoder from Coalway in Applecreek ohio. The folks there are very helpful and took the time to answer all my questions. AS the weather here in Northern Ohio is still cold , I’m not in too much of a hurry to use the YS640 while snow is still on the ground. I’m very excited to be getting the highest quality pellet grill made , and made in the USA ! After 2 years of research I chose Yoder pellet grill. I know it’s built like a tank and and will last for many years. I talked to an owner of a YS640 who said not to bother with the box store brands , just get the best right off !
Started off with a CostCo Traeger model Century 885. Suffered through four cooks that drove me nuts with inaccurate temperatures from the Traeger probes and not maintaining the heat. Had to baby sit the entire cook turning the meat to get even cooks. The basic issue for that Traeger model is from the center fire pot. That design leaves the upwind side of the cooker up to 40 degrees cooler than at the other end with the chimney. CostCo did a full refund.
I had started looking for an alternative before doing cook #3 and read about the Yoder. The design of a fire pot at the complete opposite end to the chimney was what caught my eye. I went to the only dealer in Arizona on a Friday and looked at their YS 640S and a YS 480S. I was told there were unit reservations available for their August delivery. I put my name and a deposit in the hat. Over the weekend I did lots of manual reading. On Monday I called to see if there was any availability for a competition base model. They one unsold unit coming the next week but it was a yellow base. I said sold.
The build date was 31 March 2021. It was delivered to the dealer on 2 April and to my place on 8 April, my 76th birthday. We did the initial burn in with the delivery crew and all systems worked out of the box. I was able to synch the Yoder to the Fireboard App on my iPhone so the app display showed the three Yoder probes and the six Fireboard probes.
The weight of my Yoder is 414 pounds due to some real steel in the unit made in the USA. By contrast, my Traeger was about 218 pounds of Chinese steel.
Just watching the probes during the burn in told me I had made the best decision for me. I love the build quality and the operational design is spot on for some serious cooking.
I am considering which of the kids gets to inherit this as it could last several lifetimes.
Im hand welding the wood chip box here in Lincoln. Hopefully it’s as good as I think it is.
The wait for my YS640S was well worth it! The assembly instructions were top notch and very detailed. I picked up the Yoder on Friday and cooked some steaks on Sunday and of course they were delicious!
Like others, I am impressed with the quality of the entire unit, and how well the pieces fit together. Yoder should be proud of their company. I like knowing that this is a product built in the United States of America!
I live in the UK and bought the Last 1500s in 2020 from BBQEurope before lockdown, who are absolutely super efficient and a delight to deal with.The main reason I bought one is that it’s built in the USA, the construction,plus it has FireBoard, it’s build and quality is exceptional.
I have just bought a PK Aarran Franklin edition and although it’s well made I was disappointed to later find it’s made in China. Would not have purchased if I’d known.