Microplane
Photo-etched grater blades made in Russellville, Arkansas, by an employee-owned company, with much of the assembly done abroad.
🏭 American Manufacturing
Our assessment
Company details
Where Microplane products are made
The site-wide banner does not say “Made in the USA.” It says “Grater Blades Made in the USA.” That four-word qualifier is doing real work: it tells a buyer that the American claim attaches to the etched steel, not automatically to the handle, the housing or the finished tool in the box.
A large share of Microplane product descriptions carry the line “Blade made in the USA, Assembled in MX.” Publishing the assembly country on the product page, rather than only the flattering half, is the behaviour the Buy American Campaign wants to see rewarded, and it is why this profile can be specific rather than vague.
Grace Manufacturing Inc. of Russellville describes itself as one hundred per cent employee owned through an ESOP. Note one inconsistency on the company own About page, which calls the business both employee owned and family owned and managed; the Buy American Campaign records the ESOP, which is the specific claim, and does not assert family ownership.
The Federal Trade Commission reserves an unqualified Made in USA claim for goods that are all or virtually all of domestic origin. Microplane does not make an unqualified claim: it says the grater blades are made in the USA and states on many listings that the tool is assembled in Mexico, while labelling some products Imported. This profile carries the American Manufacturing emblem for that reason, and buyers should check the individual listing.
The story
Microplane exists because of a woodworking tool. Grace Manufacturing of Russellville, Arkansas had a successful woodworking division making photo-etched rasps: long, narrow steel tools covered in hundreds of tiny razor-sharp teeth, made to shape and file wood. In the 1990s someone worked out that the same tool zested citrus better than anything in a kitchen drawer, and a culinary brand was born out of a hardware one.
The company marked its twenty-fifth anniversary as a kitchen brand in 2019 and now designs and makes more than forty Microplane kitchen tools: fine and coarse graters, zesters, box graters, and dedicated tools for garlic, ginger, herbs, spices and avocados. The etching process is what distinguishes them. A photo-etched blade is chemically cut rather than stamped, which is why the teeth stay sharp and why the shavings come off whole rather than crushed.
Grace Manufacturing is one hundred per cent employee owned through an employee stock ownership plan, and the company says so plainly on its About page. Alongside Microplane it runs Dog Tag Art and MudBusters. The Russellville plant is where the blades still come from.
Why they matter
Kitchen tools are a category where almost nothing is made in the United States any more, and where “designed in America” is usually the strongest claim on the box. Microplane is genuinely doing more than that: the functional heart of the tool, the etched steel blade, is made in Arkansas.
What makes Microplane worth featuring is not that the claim is total, because it is not. It is that the company publishes the limits of the claim on the product pages themselves. “Blade made in the USA, Assembled in MX” is a sentence written by a company that expected to be checked. Plenty of competitors say less and imply more.
The employee ownership matters too. An ESOP keeps the decision about where the blades get etched in the hands of the people who etch them. That is a structural reason a plant stays in Russellville rather than a sentimental one.
Shop Microplane products
The Buy American Campaign store stocks fourteen Microplane items, all from the grater and zester families the American blade claim covers: Premium and Classic zester graters, Professional Series fine, coarse and extra coarse kitchen graters, Gourmet Series cheese graters, Master Series wood handle graters, Home Series cheese graters and a manual spice mill.
Microplane questions
Where are Microplane graters made?
The blades are photo-etched in Russellville, Arkansas. Many finished tools are then assembled in Mexico, which Microplane states on the product listings themselves with the line “Blade made in the USA, Assembled in MX.”
Why does this profile say American Manufacturing rather than Made in USA?
Because Microplane qualifies its own claim. Its site banner reads “Grater Blades Made in the USA,” not “Made in the USA,” and a set of listings is labelled simply Imported. The Buy American Campaign uses the emblem that matches what the maker says.
Who owns Microplane?
Microplane is a division of Grace Manufacturing Inc. of Russellville, Arkansas, which states that it is one hundred per cent employee owned through an employee stock ownership plan. Grace also runs Dog Tag Art and MudBusters.
What makes a Microplane blade different from a stamped grater?
It is photo-etched rather than stamped, a process Grace originally developed for woodworking rasps. Chemically cut teeth stay sharper for longer and shear the food rather than tearing it, which is why the shavings come off light instead of compacted.