The floor rattles a little bit when the large gear that hovers above turns and discharges 750 tons of pressure. After a swishing, a clunk and a release, a round piece of metal takes its first step toward a destiny to serve thousands of dinners over decades of use.
Vita Craft pots and pans have been made in essentially the same way in Shawnee for more than 70 years — but most people in town have never heard of them. They are, however, a household name in Japan. That’s right. Japan.
Local workers, your neighbors, make hundreds of thousands of top-quality pots and pans each year in an unassuming brown building behind City Hall in Shawnee. These are the kinds of pots and pans professional chefs leave other brands to use. These are the kinds of pans grandma and grandpa used every morning to fry eggs. They last for decades, a lifetime. The vast majority of this Shawnee-made cookware is shipped to happy waiting customers across the Pacific Ocean, thanks to a Japa nese salesman who took the product home and now owns this Kansas company.
As cooking season heats up, and buying local grows ever bigger, Vita Craft leaders are trying to make their made-in-the-U.S. product as popular in the U.S. as it is in Japan. Kansas City has become the first test market in a fight to get American retailers to recognize the product and put it on the shelves. If their plan works, the company could be an overnight success 76 years in the making.
Read more: Shawnee cookware maker Vita Craft says it’s time to shine