It all started in 1919 when Edward G. Kingsford helped Henry Ford procure a stretch of timberland to supply wood for his auto plants. Mr. Ford wondered if all the wood waste generated by his sawmill and plants could be put to better use, and found his answer in a new process for pressing blocks of reconstituted char.

Kingsford is a brand of charcoal briquette used for grilling, along with related products. Established in 1920, the brand is owned by The Clorox Company. Currently, the Kingsford Products Company remains the leading manufacturer of charcoal in the United States, with 80% market share.

Kingsford® charcoal is made from locally sourced wood, and other natural ingredients. To minimize our environmental impact, we convert more than one million tons of reclaimed wood that would otherwise go to landfill into high-quality briquets every year.

The solution came from a University of Oregon chemist named Orin Stafford, who had invented a method for making pillow-shaped lumps of fuel from sawdust and mill waste combined with tar and bound together with cornstarch. He called the lumps “charcoal briquettes.” Ford, ever efficient, shortened the word to “briquet.”

The Kingsford Company was formed when E.G. Kingsford, a relative of Ford's, brokered the site selection for Ford's new charcoal manufacturing plant. The company, originally called Ford Charcoal, was renamed in E.G.'s honor.

The first use of charcoal for purposes other than providing heat was around 30,000 BC when cavemen used it as a pigment for drawing on the walls of caves. Then around 4000 BC came a monumental discovery, probably by accident, when a piece of ore fell into a charcoal fire and began to ooze metal.

Unlike the pure hardwood lump charcoal, the briquettes contain several additives that help them light and burn consistently. Most briquettes are compressed tightly from various materials such as coal dust, borax, sawdust, wax, chaff and more.

Over the past century, Kingsford has had time to refine their formula. The briquettes have become smaller and more compact. If you're returning to grilling after a long hiatus, you'll find that Kingsford briquettes burn hotter and longer due to the denser material.

While lump charcoal is 100% hardwood and has no additive, briquettes are made from compressed sawdust that often contains fillers and binders to hold their uniform shape. For most people, briquettes are the better choice as they're cheaper, much easier to light, and provide more even heating.

The wood is grinded. And fed into a rotary dryer where it's converted into high consistency char. And the result soft briquettes plant manager Steve Miller says the new briquettes.

The history of biomass briquetting Briquette was first developed by the British mechanical engineering research institute. Their raw material is peat. Then the technology was used to process lignite and clean coal, and was gradually developed to use for the waste in the paper mills.

The wood is grinded. And fed into a rotary dryer where it's converted into high consistency char. And the result soft briquettes plant manager Steve Miller says the new briquettes.

I love kingsford charcoal they are very easy to light they be ready to use in about 15 minutes and they burns for a long time and it doesn't take a lot when using them. I've tried others to save money, but I always go back to kingsford it's no other like them. They are well worth your money.

Charcoal is a convenient and attractive energy source because of its high calorific value compared to firewood; it is cleaner, producing less smoke when burned than firewood; it is generally less expensive to cook with charcoal, and provides a reasonable substitute for electricity during frequent power disruptions.