Heat shifts BBQ timing and rewards easy-to-cook meat formats

Extreme heat did not remove barbecue occasions from the UK summer of 2026; it shifted cooking times and strengthened demand for easy formats. That is the finding of an AHDB analysis using Worldpanel by Numerator data for the 16 weeks to 6 September. There were 69.5 million scratch-cooked barbecue occasions. During heatwave periods, 46.1% of barbecue consumption took place after 7 pm, compared with 28.3% across the summer as a whole.