With a new president, Ooni eyes expansion beyond pizza ovens
Sales of home pizza ovens were on fire during the pandemic. Now, leaders in the category are looking for new ways to keep the pizza party going.
Take Ooni, which launched in 2012 as a Kickstarter campaign. In 2020, Ooni’s sales grew by 300%, with the company selling roughly $70 million worth of pizza ovens that year. Then, in 2021, sales quadrupled. But since then, Ooni’s growth has cooled. The Scottish company reported that in 2022, sales were essentially flat, while profits were crushed by higher freight costs.
Over the past few years, Ooni has experimented with launching more accessories and complementary products, like a grocery line complete with dough and sauce and an all-electric indoor oven. Now, the company is poised to make category expansion an even bigger priority with new executive hires.
Last month, the company announced that it had hired Stephen Krauss as its president of North America. Krauss has an extensive background in kitchen appliances, having previously spent five years as president of Breville Americas. “With Stephen Krauss at the helm, Ooni is poised to seize new opportunities, innovate its product offerings, and strengthen its trailblazing leadership in the cooking industry,” the company said in a press release.
In an interview with Modern Retail, Krauss said he sees a few key areas for growth at Ooni, including investing more in product development and expanding Ooni’s retail presence while maintaining relationships with its current fleet of wholesale partners. Ooni is currently in approximately 8,000 retail doors in the U.S., across retailers like Ace Hardware and Best Buy. Krauss said that he can’t yet share specifics about what types of products are in the works at Ooni, but “you can expect some very, very cool stuff in 2026 and beyond.”
Here are some highlights from the conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
How the kitchen appliances category has evolved
“Obviously, we [Ooni] are not in straight-up indoor kitchen appliances… but they have really evolved over time… At one point, you would consider them to be functional devices, simply accomplishing functional tasks. But now, it’s evolved to creating special moments, accomplishing very specific tasks incredibly well and a statement of design and expression of who we are.
“I think that’s really where kitchen appliances are. Yes, there’s the cheap and cheerful at the bottom end, but I think where kitchen appliances have really gone is you got to do something extremely well, and while you’re doing it, it’s got to look damn good. And, it’s got to allow me to make a statement about myself and allow me to create those special moments for my family.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in or [outside the house]. People are trying to create those special moments for their family and their friends. And Ooni is focused on exactly that.”
How Ooni will look to tweak its marketing funnel
“The top, middle and bottom of the marketing funnel is going to be critical, and making sure we get the right balance there. There’s no question that the organic growth to date has been fueled by, of course, the amazing product — but also the way in which we market it.
“We’re sitting here planning right now for 2025… [the focus] is on not just getting attention to the brand overall, it’s to make sure there’s a consumer offtake whether it be on-site, whether it be on our partners’ site or whether it be actually in stores.
“[Retail] is a crowded space. They’re no longer allowing product that is the same old same old to be there, and you better be willing to put some money behind the product and to put some marketing behind the product… The retailer is not going to let it sit on its shelf and move on its own. So it’s that multiple levels of marketing that I’m talking about — the brand marketing, the digital marketing and making sure that, at the field level, at where it counts with our partners, we are spending there as well to make sure that the consumer offtake is there.”
What attracted him to Ooni and the parallels he sees with Breville
“It was the product, the design, the engineering — it actually reminded me of the early days when I first started talking with guys at Breville — and the opportunity that I saw in front of the brand to actually have huge growth in the market. Because, I mean, the recognition of the brand [Ooni] is obviously going to be much lower than something [like Breville] that has been around for a heck of a long time.
“Breville, when I joined, it was a 74-year-old company in 2010 and had been in North America for eight years… with a 74-year-old history, much deeper global and regional infrastructure and processes were firmly in place with Breville.
“[With Ooni] the similarity is the time spent North America and, of course, the product design and engineering, the cool factor. Yet [Ooni] being only 12 years old as a company means that there are lots of opportunities to continue to build and adjust the way in which we run our business.
“North America is such an important part of the Ooni business, with opportunities for significant growth ahead. [We’re focused on] reflecting this across our structure.”