This cookware maker is bracing for steel tariffs behind a wall of pots and pans

NBC News

3 days ago

Checkbook Chronicles
Steel and aluminum tariffs are going to cost Heritage Steel hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But Danny Henn, who runs the family-owned stainless steel cookware company, says it may have a competitive edge.
Aug. 3, 2025, 2:06 PM EDT
By Emily Lorsch
Heritage Steel, a small, family-owned cookware manufacturer in Clarksville, Tennessee, is expecting to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tariffs this year.
The company recently received a tariff bill of $75,000 on an order of handles, and the company's vice president of operations, Danny Henn, is anticipating another bill of closer to $200,000 for goods that will likely reach the U.S. this month.
'We're a pretty small business,' Henn said. 'Having that as an additional sort of surprise expense is not insignificant.'
But even with that new cost factored in, Heritage Steel believes steel and aluminum tariffs could be good for the business.
'Just from the base economics of it, yes, we have to pay more, but others have to pay a whole lot more,' Henn added.
Heritage Steel employs about 40 workers and has more than doubled its revenue since 2018. The company is up 60% in cookware sales since last year.
While company leaders now have to rethink pricing and make adjustments in response to President Donald Trump's trade war, Henn said they're feeling optimistic.
Business highlights
Danny Henn's grandfather Donald Henn was a door-to-door cookware salesman after graduating from college. In 1983, he purchased a factory in Clarksville, Tennessee, and from there was born New Era, which later became Heritage Steel.
'My grandma and grandpa and my parents were always big people about cooking at home. The cookware was always there,' said Henn.
From frying pans and skillets to stock pots, saucepans and knives, Heritage Steel sells about 50 different cookware products on its website and Amazon. The company also sells wholesale to independent gourmet retailers.
'We are happy and proud to be an American producer of goods.'
Heritage Steel needs three main types of inputs to make its cookware, and about 75% of the company's materials are imported. The most important part and the largest cost is the five-ply cladded body, which includes a combination of stainless steel and aluminum.
'It's very specialized processing that it has to go through to get into this form,' Henn said. 'And so, because it is very specialized, there's not a whole lot of people that do it.'
Tariff impacts
Heritage Steel imports its cladded steel from South Korea, which will be facing a 15% tariff that Trump announced on Wednesday after the country made 'an offer to buy down' the 25% duty level he had previously set.
The company imports its handles, made from pure stainless steel using a process called lost-wax casting, from China. Meanwhile, the company purchases the material for its stainless steel lids in the U.S. Those parts don't have to be cladded and are a more simple single layer of stainless steel that's more widely available.
Heritage Steel had previously sourced cladded steel from U.S. vendors, but those providers have since exited the business, according to Henn.
'There's just not enough of a U.S. market for cookware manufacturing of this type … right now. There isn't a viable vendor for us to find.'
Since the company only makes a handful of raw-material purchases each year, it typically has a large order coming in all at once, which set up the company nicely when the first 25% tariffs on steel went into effect earlier this year.
'We had a good amount of it,' Henn said, referring to the raw materials, 'so that gave us more time of being able to know we're going to be able to manufacture and sell a bunch of stuff without the tariff cost on it.'
Henn said that wasn't a tariff strategy, but instead a benefit of his company's workflow.
However, they knew that leeway wasn't going to last forever. Eventually it became time for Heritage Steel to order more materials. That first tariff bill was about $75,000, and Henn is expecting the next to be more than twice as much.
Who pays?
For Heritage Steel, there was never a doubt it would have to raise prices because of the tariff expenses. The question was how high would they have to go?
'We're happy and proud to be a provider of really high-quality cookware, but one that's more affordably priced than some of the others on the market,' Henn said. 'We want to continue to offer the best price we can, given our constraints.'
As of Friday, the company had raised prices by about 15% on all of its products. Heritage Steel explained the increase in an announcement on its website, calling the adjustment 'fairly modest' considering the price of the company's input materials spiked at least 50%.
'Obviously, we can't bear the full impact of these cost increases,' Henn said, 'but we also don't want our customers to bear the full cost.'
He expects these changes to negatively impact the company's profit margins, but as of now the extent is unclear. Henn believes the company has more flexibility than a lot of its competitors because Heritage Steel is only importing raw materials, not the full product, and manufactures in the U.S. That's why he expects the overall market disruption could be good for the company.
'They might have to do something closer to a 50% price increase,' he said of his competitors, 'because their entire cost of goods is going up by 50%.'
For Heritage Steel, on the other hand, only the price of parts is up 50%, not the full product. Henn said it's all about finding the sweet spot: a fair amount to charge customers to compensate for the new costs while still being a price leader in the market.
'We're just doing our best to do good by our customer, not raise prices too much, do well by our employees, keep paying them well and try to stay competitive within the market.'
Even though Henn is optimistic about this potential competitive edge, that doesn't mean he believes the Trump administration's tariffs are the right approach. What makes more sense to him, he said, is a change over a longer period of time.
'If there is something that would have a similar effect of giving incentives to bring more more industry back to the U.S., I think that would likely be a positive,' he said, adding that he believes the intent of the tariffs policy is good.
'The implementation is a little bit rocky,' he said.
Henn declined to comment on his political views and whom he voted for in the presidential election.
As for other options that could bring down Heritage Steel's tariff bill, that's something being discussed as well. While stainless clad cookware is the company's bread and butter, Henn and his co-owners are exploring a range of possibilities.
'If we had our full wish,' Henn said, 'we would be able to have a fully U.S.-based supply chain for our entire manufacturing process.'
Emily Lorsch
Emily Lorsch is a producer at NBC News covering business and the economy.