It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention. But in Lake Preston, South Dakota, it was a mother who drove her husband and son toward an invention.
"We got tired of eating burnt food," Dakota Grills inventor Adam Sorenson said.
"Guys didn't care for the blackened food all that much. We're not southern," Kathy Sorenson said.
Wally Sorenson and his son, Adam, have worked on their family farm for years, but when the dinner bell rang, the supper table was often put on the back burner.
"We'd get busy doing projects, pulling a calf, this or that, or even just working in a shop. And quite often the food would be done for a couple hours before we'd come up and eat," Adam said.
"She'd have something on the grill and by the time we got back it'd always be burned up, just black," Wally said.
So, the father-and-son team decided to put their engineering degrees to good use and build a grill that wouldn't singe their steak.
"Couldn't afford to get rid of the wife so we had to find some way to cook and still have a good meal," Wally said.
After about 15 years of fiddling with a gas grill, the Sorenson's finally came up with an electric model that could control the temperature and the time of their meal.
"Once we went electric I think the first prototype we built was actually in a week and we used that the next two or three years, and we thought we were done building grills at that time," Adam said.
But what started out as a quest to find a grill that would not burn their food has now turned into a family business. "I kinda remember the day, it was when Jim Woster stopped out and Dad was showing him this great new grill he had invented and Jim didn't even taste the food. Jim just said, 'Wow that sounds really neat I want one of those. You guys have got to make this.' And we were like we don't want to sell these, that's a lot of work," Adam said.
The Sorenson named their line of inventions Dakota Grills. It's a completely insulated grill that locks in the electric heat and has a timer to control how long and how hot the food is cooked.
"We control that air flow so your product is always going to be moist and juicy and tender. It's not going to be dried out like it's easy to do with other ways of cooking," Adam said.
Dakota Grills has been producing their product for five years now out of a shed on the family farm. Last year they made about one a week, and now what was a side business is what's keeping the Sorenson's occupied.
"Got so busy with these grills and so on that we did sell the cattle," Wally said.
Now flame broiled food is a full-time job for the family.
"You kind of have this little thought in the back of your mind, what if you know? But it's like, 'Nah, it will never happen. But here we are," Adam said.
And as for Mom, who constantly got side-tracked from cooking.
"I ignore it all the time. I totally ignore the grill. I love it," Kathy said.
Because on the Sorenson farm, their mother's necessity was a new invention.
The Sorenson's have mainly sold their grills by word of mouth. They do sell the Dakota Grills in seven small stores across the state, but hope to snag a larger retailer in the future.
More information on the Sorenson's products
