The company cookout is one of the few corporate events where people bring their families, which changes what the giveaway should be. You are not equipping an employee for work; you are giving a household something it will use again next weekend.

Aprons are the visible item

Whoever is cooking is standing in front of everyone for two hours wearing whatever you gave them. A decent apron is worn at the event and then at home for years — it is the highest-visibility, longest-lived item in this category, and it costs less than most drinkware.

Coolers and koozies do the volume

Everything cold needs carrying and holding. Cooler bags, can coolers and insulated tumblers are used continuously through the afternoon, which is the test that matters at an outdoor event. Skip anything paper — it does not survive a table in the wind.

Add sunscreen and wipes

Two cheap items nobody thinks of and everybody needs at an outdoor cookout. They are the kind of small practical addition that gets an event remembered as well organised, and they cost almost nothing against the catering line.