Oka Brands Featured in USA Today
Meet 8 of the last home goods manufacturers in America
Excerpt:
"Forty-one years ago, when Sara Irvani’s grandfather launched a footwear company in Buford, Georgia, half the nation’s shoes were made in America.
Today, the figure is down to 1%.
“From the late 1890s through the 1970s or so, there had actually been shoe manufacturing in Buford,” Irvani said.
Now, the Oka Brands factory stands alone.
President Donald Trump’s controversial tariff campaign has stirred conversation, debate, hope and despair about the state of American manufacturing.
Trump says he is raising import taxes partly in the hope of sparking a manufacturing revival and inspiring consumers to buy American.
Buy American is a concept as old as the nation. Right now, though, the Buy American movement faces stiff headwinds. Inflation has raised prices dramatically over the past five years, making cheap imports look all the more appealing.
Most Americans say they prefer American-made products, when they can find them, according to an October survey by Morning Consult for the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
But they may not be looking very hard: Gallup polling suggests only about 40% of Americans consistently know where their toasters and T-shirts are made.
American manufacturers want attitudes to change.
“Made in America means communities and jobs and supporting neighbors,” said Amity Messett, sales and marketing director at Liberty Tabletop, a company that bills itself as the last American manufacturer of stainless-steel flatware.
USA TODAY spoke to some of the last manufacturers of household goods in America to learn why they kept their businesses stateside, what they offer that their overseas competitors don't, and how Trump's tariffs impact what they do."
"Some American companies moved factories and jobs overseas, leveraging lower wages, cheaper materials, lax labor laws and scant environmental regulations. Others closed, driven out of business by imported products that sometimes sold for less than it cost to make them.
At some pivotal moment, each of the eight manufacturers profiled in this report chose to remain in business, to keep their factories in America and to compete against a rising tide of imports.
Today, most of them don’t even try to compete on price.
“I just don’t talk about price, ever, because there’s no point,” said Matt Bigelow, CEO of USA Brands, a manufacturer of flannel shirts, blue jeans and teddy bears.
“Something like 90% or 95% of all the world’s toys and teddy bears and plush are made in China,” he said. If you go on Amazon and you look for a cheap teddy bear, you’re not going to find us.”
Instead, they compete on quality.
Nordic Ware baking sheets, pressed at a factory in Minnesota, have been Wirecutter’s pick as best in class for more than 10 years.
American Giant, based in San Francisco, sells a sweatshirt that Slate Magazine has termed “the Greatest Hoodie Ever Made.”
A writer at CNET tried a pair of Oka Recovery slides and declared, “My Feet Can’t Stop Thanking Me.”