Five-ply stainless clad cookware made in Clarksville, Tennessee since 1983
✅ Made in USA
Where Heritage Steel products are made
Clarksville, Tennessee
Founder Donald Henn bought the Clarksville plant in 1983 along with the consumer division of the Vollrath Company. Heritage Steel states that all of its pans and lids are produced at that factory today.
Fully clad construction
Heritage Steel’s cookware pairs stainless steel with an aluminum core for even heating, with the cladding running up the sides of the pan rather than only across the base.
316Ti cooking surface
In 2017 the company converted its Titanium Series to a 316Ti stainless interior, which it describes as its most durable and non-reactive cooking surface.
Heritage Steel is specific about its origin claim, and the wording is worth reading. The company labels its cookware “Made in the USA with Global Materials” — the pans and lids are formed, finished and assembled at the Clarksville plant, while the stainless and aluminum stock is bought on the world market, which is normal for domestic metal goods. Heritage Steel states that all of our pans and lids are produced here by its own team, and backs them with a lifetime warranty. It also sells Hammer Stahl cutlery, a separate line with its own sourcing, so buyers looking specifically for American-made cookware should shop the cookware lines.
The story
Heritage Steel’s history runs through one building. Donald Henn started selling cookware straight out of college in the 1960s, working as a top independent distributor for the Vollrath Company of Wisconsin and selling stainless clad pans directly to families around the country.
In 1983 he bought Vollrath’s consumer division outright, along with its factory in Clarksville, Tennessee, and formed New Era, Inc. That purchase is the founding event of the company that operates today, and the reason a small Tennessee city has been turning out multiclad cookware for more than forty years.
New Era spent the following decades on the technical side of the trade. It was among the first American manufacturers to introduce induction-compatible cookware and an early adopter of multiclad construction. Hammer Stahl cutlery arrived in 2008, Hammer Stahl cookware — now the Titanium Series — in 2013, and in 2017 that line moved to a 316Ti stainless interior.
In 2019 New Era and Hammer Stahl consolidated under the Heritage Steel name, chosen to mark the company’s own history of American manufacturing. It remains family-owned, three generations in, and in 2023 partnered with Eater on a line of professional-quality cookware built at the same plant.
Why they matter
Cookware is one of the most thoroughly offshored categories in the American kitchen. Most stainless sets sold in the United States are made overseas and finished under a domestic brand name, and the few companies still operating their own American plants are the exception rather than the rule.
Heritage Steel is one of those exceptions, and it owns the factory rather than renting capacity in someone else’s. That control is the whole argument the company makes for itself: because it makes its own cookware, it decides every step of how a pan is built, and can keep refining it.
The company’s stated mission is blunt about the trade-off — make a great product, sell it at a fair price, and pay good wages to the American workers who build it. Its factory runs on a long-tenured workforce, which is the kind of employment that disappears first when production moves offshore.
Featured products
Browse Heritage Steel stainless clad cookware available through the Buy American Campaign store.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Heritage Steel cookware made?
At the company’s own factory in Clarksville, Tennessee. Heritage Steel states that all of its pans and lids are produced there.
How old is Heritage Steel?
The company dates to 1983, when Donald Henn purchased a Clarksville cookware factory and formed New Era, Inc. The Heritage Steel name was adopted in 2019, when New Era and Hammer Stahl consolidated under one brand.
Is Heritage Steel family-owned?
Yes. The company says it is still owned and operated by the Henn family, now three generations in.
What does “Made in the USA with Global Materials” mean?
It is Heritage Steel’s own label. The cookware is manufactured at the Clarksville plant, while the stainless and aluminum raw stock is sourced on the global market.