Ozark Oak

WTF!!!!!!!!! 

McStew said:

Now for those of us in CA, officially will be stuck with nothing

Rockwood, PLEASE release your product for sale in CA! 

THEBuckeye said:

It does not make sense that a viable business just closes it's doors. Who wouldn't try and sell a viable business when retiring?  

Some people just don't want their business to be in anybody's hand but family. If there is no one to replace them, they close. My great uncle did this with his restaurant in NC, a personal friend of my parents did this with the restaurant his father started in MD/VA, and a local hobby shop is doing this unless one of his regular's that loves the shop as much as he does buys him out.

It's not all about money.

jcaspary said:

propofol said:

McStew said:

Now for those of us in CA, officially will be stuck with nothing

Rockwood, PLEASE release your product for sale in CA! 

Would this be a Rockwood thing or something the state of California has regulations on that Rockwood would
need to pay more for to get it to be sold there?

He may chime in, but he's explained before. The state regulations make it too hard to do business there.

I won't speak for Rockwood but do recall that Rockwood wants nothing to do with the Prop 65 rules and requirements.  Perhaps @stlcharcoal will be along with more clarification.

THEBuckeye said:

It does not make sense that a viable business just closes it's doors. Who wouldn't try and sell a viable business when retiring?  

Another aspect MIGHT be that they were running out of local sources of the type of timber lands they count on for material. I recall they use the discarded pieces of trees not the lumber producing trunks! Transportation costs could clearly be a factor here and no family interested on carrying on the business too.

I'll be trying rockwood in the near future. 

Wow. I ordered my first 5 bags last night from Firecraft due to all the accolades here on the forum.
Received an email from them this morning that it was backordered with an estimated in stock date of March 16th.
Sorry to hear it. Was looking forward to making it my go to lump.

Looks like they have a bunch too. Let me put up to 30 bags in my cart. 

@weberwho? - Only if the price is right otherwise it's back to RO at 4.88 on sale bag at menards in the next month or so............. I was going to try a back of Rockwood from a distributor in Sioux Falls however it was $28 for a 20 pound bag. To rich for my blood.

This seemed appropriate.

Wow......just as surprised as everyone else. 

Nothing is changing with us--business will continue as normal.  But there is only so much wood in the Mark Twain Forest, so it's not like we're going to be able to double production.  We're still not taking any new dealers--been that way for a while and will continue.

If anyone is dead set on the 10# vs. the 20#, just ask you dealer to order them.  The bad part is that they're more expensive to produce for the same tonnage (twice the paper + twice the labor in each pallet).  We do not sell very many outside of St. Louis. 

As far as California goes, here's my reply from another thread:

 

Prop 65 = Special labeling for anything that emits carbon monoxide (e.g. anything that you burn.)  We would have to keep an environmental attorney on retainer out there and produce special bags to keep in inventory just for CA.  Sorry, but no thanks.

We already have the huge CPSC mandated label on both sides warning about the dangers of carbon monoxide.  Not good enough for CA though.....gotta have another one somewhere "conspicuous" on the bag quoting Prop 65. 

I wish we had the power like Starbucks to thumb our nose at law, but we cannot take the risk.  I don't remember what gas(es) their coffee emits, but they refused to put the label on their cups and are already getting sued.  We'll take the road of S&W and Ruger.......just give up the market to someone else who wants to take on the risk. 

Brisket_Fanatic said:

@weberwho? - Only if the price is right otherwise it's back to RO at 4.88 on sale bag at menards in the next month or so............. I was going to try a back of Rockwood from a distributor in Sioux Falls however it was $28 for a 20 pound bag. To rich for my blood.

@Brisket_Fanatic‌ Whoa!  Ouch.  That's way too much even if it compares to Ozark Oak.  $12 for 20lb of Ozark Oak is more my style.  Damn

THEBuckeye said:

Perhaps the Mothership will step in?

And do what?  I'm sure the mothership would be perfectly fine with any competitor to their branded charcoal going out of business.

HostileHarry said:

I just received my first and now last, 5 bags of OO from FireCraft today.

I've got my first 8 bags of OO from Firecraft set for delivery this Friday. I'm really upset because I was looking for a neutral lump solution for California.