Who actually made it
A brand and a factory are not the same thing, and sometimes they are not even the same company. A business can own a name, a logo and a website, pay somebody else to make the product, and never say so anywhere a shopper would look.
The manufacturers below say so. Each one states, on its own site, that it makes goods sold under other companies' names. None of them had to mention it.
Factories that make goods sold under other names
Each of these says, on its own site, that it manufactures for brands other than itself. So a shelf in a shop may hold two boxes with different names on them and one factory behind both.
| Manufacturer | In its own words |
|---|---|
| AKWAapparel | Founded in 1987, AKWA has grown from humble beginnings at local swap meets into one of the trusted USA-made apparel manufacturers serving the promotional market. |
| Binghamton Knitting Companyapparel | We produce items for and sell to mom-and-pop gift shops, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between. |
| Bollman Hat Companyapparel | Since 1868, Bollman has continuously produced hats for the world’s finest brands. Our private label division can create hats and accessories from a variety of different materials and fabrics produced in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. |
| Brooklyn Beddinghome-textiles | Brooklyn Bedding also manufactures many of the top private label mattress brands on the market, having opened its first permanent showroom at the Las Vegas Market trade show in 2018. |
| Honestly pHreshpersonal-care | We know how to make deodorants and feminine care that actually work, and we bring the same expertise and integrity to every private label partnership. |
| KOBO Candlescandles-and-home-fragrance | We actually pour products for some nationally famous brands and many startups as well. |
| Plant Therapypersonal-care | Custom formulations, private label ready products, flexible MOQs, and full-service support from a USA-based manufacturer trusted by hundreds of private label partners worldwide. |
| SynergyLabspet | Flea Doctor has since evolved into SynergyLabs, a leading U.S. manufacturer of over 10 brands and private-label pet and veterinary products distributed to more than 60 countries worldwide. |
The same gap, the other way round
Here the business that does the making is licensed by the brand whose name is on the label, so the maker and the name are separate companies and the maker says so.
| Manufacturer | In its own words |
|---|---|
| Teeki Boutiqueapparel | Welcome to Teeki Boutique, the licensed manufacturer of the beloved Teeki brand. |
And two that say they do not
These are quoted because the arrangement above is only interesting against its opposite. Both companies raise outside manufacturing themselves, in order to say they do not use it.
| Manufacturer | In its own words |
|---|---|
| Badger Balmpersonal-care | Many other skin care brands rely on outside manufacturers to make their products. |
| ON3P Skisskis-and-snowboards | It’s not operated by some OEM company, nor are we some mega-factory building our skis overseas. |
Why this page exists
Every other page here answers "where was this made". This one answers a question that comes first and is almost never asked: who made it.
The two are easy to confuse. A badge saying Made in USA tells you about a country. It tells you nothing about whether the company whose name is on the box has ever owned a machine. Both of those can be true at once: the product really is made in America, and the brand selling it really is just a name.
That is not a scandal. Contract manufacturing is how most consumer goods have always been made, and a company that runs a good factory for other people is doing more real work than a company that runs none. The point is narrower. If you are choosing between two boxes on a shelf because one of them feels more like a maker, the factory behind both may be the same building, and nothing on either box will tell you.
How a company gets onto this list
It says so itself, in a sentence, on its own site.
The list is kept by hand, and it has to be. The obvious way to build it is to search every quoted sentence in this directory for words like private label, contract manufacturing or OEM. That method puts ON3P Skis at the top of the first table, because its sentence contains the word OEM while rejecting the arrangement completely, and it credits Badger Balm, whose sentence raises outside manufacturers in order to say it does not use them.
Both companies are on this page, in the group that says what they actually said. A list of companies that make for other brands, assembled by matching the words companies use to say they do not, would be worse than having no list.
What this page is not
It is not a list of brands that own no factory. That list would be far longer and it cannot be built from first-party pages, because a company with nothing to disclose rarely writes a sentence about it.
It is not a claim that every item a listed factory makes goes out under somebody else's name. Most of these companies sell under their own name too, and several say so in the same paragraph.
And an absence here means nothing at all. A manufacturer not on this page may do the same work and never have mentioned it.