Bratsgiving - Our Favorite Food Holiday
Celebrate with Johnsonville before and during National Bratwurst Day!
August 16 is a special food holiday that we get really excited about around here. It’s National Bratwurst Day, which we've re-named as Bratsgiving Day – a holiday to celebrate everything great about brats.
This is our third year celebrating Bratsgiving, but we always felt like something was missing. Christmas has Santa Claus. Easter has the bunny. Bratsgiving hasn't had a magical character. Until Johnsonville members created one, done the Johnsonville Way.
We interviewed about a dozen Johnsonville members and combined their ideas to create the character who makes Bratsgiving wishes come true. Their video details that creative journey and you can meet this Bratsgiving hero named Carl, here.
We also hired a professional children's book illustrator to bring Carl the Great Bratsgiver to life in a featured storybook. The Johnsonville members responsible for creating Carl are all introduced in the credits at the back of the book.
On the actual sausage holiday, we’ll be in Kansas City, celebrating with that community via our Big Taste Grill in a couple of locations and granting a holiday gift to a special organization. Tune into our Facebook page on August 16 and celebrate with us remotely!
Finally, as per our tradition, we like to grant wishes on Bratsgiving Day. So we hosted a contest August 2-9, inviting all consumers to simply share a statement about who they'd want to share this special sausage holiday with and why, for a chance to win a Bratsgiving Brat Bundle (retail value of $2000). We’ll announce the 10 winners the week of Aug. 15, when we'll send them the party pack that features: a corn hole set, t-shirt, sunglasses, temporary tattoos, can koozie, 10 packs of brats, tongs, apron, spatula, a mini grill, and elements from Carl’s costume.
Several BBQ bloggers and YouTube grilling enthusiasts will spread Bratsgiving cheer, sharing their festivities and grilling recipes on our YouTube channel over the 10 days leading up to Bratsgiving. And several of our retail customers across the country are getting in the spirit, sharing Bratsgiving carols, wishing grills, special holiday contests and other promotions.
Who knew a sausage holiday could bring so much cheer?