housewares
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The 116-Year-Old Appliance Company That Quietly Runs Your Kitchen Counter
It designs the blender, licenses the Clorox name, lets a factory in China build it, and sells it to Walmart. A look at how a 116-year-old brand keeps winning the countertop.
The Kitchen Guy Who Turned Air Fryers Into a $5 Billion Franchise
Shae Hong bought a sleepy appliance manufacturer, wired it to celebrity culture and real-time retail data, and turned toasters and air fryers into a portfolio of top-selling brands.
The store that turned crates and barrels into a $2.5 billion habit
Two newlyweds back from a European honeymoon opened a Chicago shop that stacked its merchandise on the packing crates it arrived in. Sixty years later the crates are gone, the design studios are here, and the receipts read $2.5 billion.
Lifetime Brands
The company behind Farberware gadgets, Mikasa plates and S’well bottles has spent decades turning the kitchen drawer into a portfolio business. Now its next act depends as much on logistics and tariffs as it does on taste.