Source: Blog – Alliance for American Manufacturing
Ben Napier (pictured above) and his wife, Erin, have remained committed to American manufacturing. Photo courtesy Laurel Mercantile Co.
The new facility in Laurel, Miss., will manufacture butcher blocks.
When Ben and Erin Napier launched their home improvement/town revitalization show Home Town on HGTV in 2016, it was crystal clear that the husband-and-wife team had a brilliant television career ahead of them. After all, Home Town premiered to a record-setting audience of 2.2 million members.
Since that auspicious start, the show has grown into an entertainment juggernaut (Home Town debuts its sixth season on Dec. 26) and has spawned four spinoff shows. And yet, with all that success, the Napiers remain steadfast in their commitment to small-town America and the factories upon which these towns so often depend.
“For us, we recognized that our show was about revitalizing small-town America, Laurel, [Miss.] and without small-town industry, mainly American manufacturing, you don’t have small-town America,” Ben Napier told us on The Manufacturing Report podcast back in 2019.
The Napiers have taken deep personal responsibility for this revitalization, and their passion for American manufacturing has led to multiple collaborations with legacy manufacturers in the United States and the couple’s formation of their own manufacturing facilities. Most recently, the Napiers have reopened a previously shuttered factory in an “underserved part” of Laurel to produce wooden butcher blocks for their Made in USA brand, Laurel Mercantile Co.
Ben Napier explained on Instagram:
Hand constructed of cherry wood in the Scotsman Co. Woodshop, the butcher blocks are available in three sizes online but are quickly selling out. Luckily, if you miss out, there is a cornucopia of Made in America goods to peruse via Laurel Mercantile Co.’s online store.
Remarkably, with all of the couple’s success, and what are sure to be extremely financially remunerative licensing offers that come with it, the Napiers have continued their commitment to the Made in America movement as a central part of their mission.
“We are a small town. Without American manufacturing, you don’t have that. And so, with this platform that we have with Home Town and HGTV, we recognize that we have opportunities,” Ben Napier said in 2019. “Erin and I are approached almost daily by companies that want to work with us, and if we just said yes to everyone and didn’t look into where they were made and how they were made, it wouldn’t be true to us or our show.”
“We would be saying no to the thing that we actually care about, which is small-town revitalization,” added Erin Napier.
We can’t wait to see what the Napiers do next.
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