Imperial Cat
Recycled-cardboard cat scratchers and all-natural catnip made in Morrilton, Arkansas.
🇺🇸 Made in USA
Our assessment
Company details
Where Imperial Cat products are made
The company operates out of Morrilton, a town of roughly 6,700 in Conway County, and publishes the street address alongside its Made in the USA claim rather than routing customers through a distributor.
Imperial Cat states that its pure all-natural catnip is grown, processed and packaged in the USA under strict standards for quality and purity — a specific claim about a specific input, not a general badge.
The scratchers are built from recycled and eco-friendly materials. A cat scratcher is a consumable that gets destroyed on purpose, which makes the choice of material the whole environmental question in the category.
The Morrilton, Arkansas address, the Made in the USA claim and the domestic catnip sourcing are all published by Imperial Cat on imperialcat.com. No founding year is published on the company’s own site, so the “Since” line is omitted rather than guessed.
The story
The corrugated cardboard cat scratcher is one of those products that seems too simple to have a manufacturer behind it. It is a block of layered recycled cardboard that a cat destroys over a few months and you replace. Almost every one sold in America is imported.
Imperial Cat makes them in Morrilton, Arkansas, and has for about three decades. The company is family owned and operated, and its pitch is not sophistication but the opposite — it makes a small number of things well, out of materials it can account for, in a place it names.
The catalogue has grown outward from the scratcher into pads, shaped scratchers, catnip, toys, treats and grooming, but the centre of it is still Scratch ’n Shapes. And the quality control, by the company’s own cheerful account, involves more than twenty office cats putting the products through what it calls rigorous testing.
Why they matter
Pet supplies are among the most import-saturated aisles in American retail, and cat products especially so. A domestic manufacturer in a Conway County town of under seven thousand people is a genuine outlier, and the jobs it holds are meaningful at that scale in a way they would not be in a city.
The catnip claim is the part worth attention. Catnip is an agricultural product, and where it is grown and how it is processed determines whether it is potent and whether it is clean. Imperial Cat grows, processes and packages it domestically under stated standards — which is a real answer to a question most brands never address.
Recycled cardboard is also the right material for the job on the merits, not just the marketing. The product is designed to be shredded. Making it from recycled fibre and making it near the customer is simply the sensible version of a disposable good.
Shop Imperial Cat products
Browse Imperial Cat scratchers and cat products stocked on the Buy American Campaign store.
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Frequently asked questions
Are Imperial Cat products made in the USA?
Yes. Imperial Cat states on its own website that it manufactures made-in-the-USA cat products, and that its pure all-natural catnip is grown, processed and packaged in the USA under strict standards.
Where is Imperial Cat located?
At 900 W. Church Street, Morrilton, Arkansas, in Conway County.
Who owns Imperial Cat?
It is a family owned and operated business, and a division of Cat Claws.
What are Imperial Cat scratchers made of?
Recycled and eco-friendly materials — the Scratch ’n Shapes and Scratch ’n Pads lines are built from layered recycled cardboard.