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‘Made in the USA’ is a label that businesses are proud to display on their products.
To the American customer, buying American-made feels good,
but does that customer truly understand what this label means?
It sounds self-explanatory, but it’s not.
Our economic connection with the rest of the world is important, and the decision to buy entirely American can be complex. However, the Covid Pandemic highlighted the impact of global supply chain disruption, making it even more important to utilize the talent and resources we have here at home.
So, let’s get started with some basics!
How is Made in USA defined?
The latest Federal Trade Commission rule to take effect was on August 13, 2021 Complying with Guidelines
To legally claim Made in the USA as country of origin these 3 criteria must be met:
(1) Final assembly or processing of the product occurs in the United States.
(2) All significant processing for the product occurs in the United States.
(3) All, or virtually all of the product’s ingredients or components are
made and sourced in the United States.
'Virtually all' leaves an opening for interpretation.
The majority of our parts, processes and costs are made and incurred here in the US, which enables us to confidently claim ‘Made in the USA’ for all of our glasses. The making of our eyewear includes designing the glasses ourselves here in sunny San Diego, California, as well as utilizing key domestic vendors to manufacture component parts when we are unable to manufacture or process in-house, [we design, engineer, hand finish, color, assemble, R&D, and package in-house.]
Choosing Made in the USA can lower environmental impact and
be better for the community.
Manufacturing Saunt Eyewear in the US has had many expected and a few unexpected benefits. Direct benefits in making our glasses locally includes having greater control over quality, material traceability, production scheduling, cost control, creating local jobs, keeping money in our local market, control over our environmental impact and the unexpected building of community. Overall, we have an easier, smoother process with communication when working with domestic suppliers and partners. We share the advantage of cultural similarities, being in the same time zone, as well as speaking the same language.
Community & Standards
Saunt Founder, Tom Kabbash
In the past, working with overseas manufacturers, we only had a few touch points in importing our goods for resale here locally. Today, we are partnered with local manufacturers, and can work closely together in all steps of the process. We continually discover new processes and partners, which inspire us to devise fresh ways to create and complete our products.
Environmental Benefits
There are environmental benefits in manufacturing here in the US. We must adhere to strict environmental standards and regulations regarding manufacturing practices, to the benefit of the environment and our workers. We are able to minimize worldwide shipping of parts, lowering fuel consumption and emissions.
At Saunt, we have control over our manufacturing processes
and can responsibly reduce waste to minimize or eliminate
single-use plastics, non eco-friendly materials and packaging.
In working with our partners, we often point out solutions when it comes to how they package and provide us our parts. In one case, we initiated the use of fully recyclable glassine material over the use of poly bags. In another, we were unfortunately receiving parts with Styrofoam peanuts as a packaging material, so we inquired about wrapping our parts in recyclable tissue paper instead of Styrofoam. We have paid un uncharge to pack our lenses in tissue instead of poly bags.
To pay it forward, these adjustments carried over by some vendors committing to making long term changes in how they work with other customers as well. We continue these practices in everything we do.
Saunt is making its mark in big and small ways, and it feels good to provide a product that we can proudly say is ‘Made in USA’.