Waterless Cookware – How It All Began
You may be sitting there with a set of our cookware right now, wondering how this all started. How long ago was it? Who even came up with this brilliant idea? Today, we want to proudly go over with you our history. You’ll hear about how it began, all the hardships the company’s faced over the years and how they overcame them, and where we currently stand today!
The Start of an Era
It goes all the way back to 1906. There were two farmer boys that were extremely talented in metal work art and hand crafted materiel. They decided to use their skills to eventually create waterless cookware. They wanted to create cookware that would cook their freshly grown vegetables without water. To do this, they studied how an oven works. They learned how ovens cook things from bottom up, the sides in, and top down without water and grease. They also notice, however, that it dries the food out, shrinks the food, and takes a long time and uses a lot of energy. So when they crafted the first piece, they designed a water seal rim around the edge of the utensil as well as fasteners on the cover that would seal in the natural flavors. This was the world’s first known piece of waterless cookware. It was fresh, no one had ever seen something like this before. It was the first approach to cooking that managed to retain all of nature’s whole food nutrients in a meal while heating it. They didn’t realize it, but it was also the first handmade “eco-friendly” cookware in America. They named this wonderful product “Kitchen Craft.” So the two brothers decided to sell the cookware, however, there was a lack of rural stores in America. So they chose to sell them through in-home demonstrations. It was such a big success that they were joined by a team of investors. They rented a button factory situated on the west bend of the Milwaukee River, and started America’s first waterless cookware manufacturing facility. They named it simply “The West Bend Aluminum Company.”
Success only grows
Kitchen Craft’s saw it’s success grow in the 1920’s. As the sales began to grow, the business was renamed to “Kitchen Craft Company.” The manufacturing was contracted exclusively to the newly formed West Bend Company. As a result, the town of West Bend became the cookware manufacturing center of the world! The factory grew to employ over 3500 workers at it’s peak.
Kitchen Craft prevails
We enter the 1940’s now when the days of World War II were among everyone. During this time, Germany invented a new method of merging metals. The technique combined both zinc and chromium which made it economical enough to create another first-stainless steel cookware. This innovation of merging metals, the first stainless steel, three-ply, carbon core waterless cookware was created and sold under the name “Lustre Craft.” It was a massive success, but there was a problem that every manufacturing company had faced. As WW2 waged on and the American military entered the fight, production of cookware had come to a halt. All manufacturing facilities had to instead churn out supplies for the U.S. Military. Meanwhile, however, Kitchen Craft’s sales continued to grow. This is because the sales team had to tell customers, “You’ll receive your cookware when the war is over!” Most of the customers were from the abundance of single women that now worked in a factory in order to help the war effort. After the war had finally ended, young soldiers returned home to marry their girls and they were so happy to see that their cookware was already there and delivered to them! These high-quality, durable pots and pans remained with the couples throughout the years as children were born and their families grew as well. The West Bend Company also thrive as they were now able to produce and ship their cookware worldwide! Despite the hardships of the war, Kitchen Craft still found a way to grow even more success.
How a customer ended up becoming a top salesman
In 1968, a young man named Dave Hurley, had returned from the Vietnam War as a decorated soldier. Dave had previously dropped out of high school to help serve his country as a member of the Marines Corps. After he returned, he worked at a rock quarry in Southern Illinois while living in an old farmhouse he rented for $30 a month. The house had close to nothing though. There was no running water, no sink, and no bathroom. All they had was an outhouse located in the backyard. He and his new wife, without any idea of how poor they really were, made the best of their humble start. One day, that way of living would change forever. A salesman pulled into their driveway one day in a long white Cadillac. The man’s name was Richard Featherstone. He came up and knocked on the door with his simple case in hand, selling something called “waterless cookware,” branded Lustre Craft. Now for Dave, this was a really easy sell since the house didn’t have any running water anyway. Another plus for them was the fact that it came with a lifetime guarantee. So easily, the couple was sold! The only downside was that they had to postdate the $38 down payment check on their new $400.00 set of beautiful, stainless steel, waterless Lustre Craft cookware. However, they knew it was well worth it in the end.
Dave found himself to be a big believer in this cookware since the beginning and so by 1969, he began asking if he could work for the company. Mr. Featherstone turned him down 12 times before finally agreeing to letting him try his hands at sales. He knew he’d never get enough from the Rock Quarry, working 40 hours a week at $2.05 an hour. Dave only question to him was if he could work overtime. Mr. Featherstone replied with “You can work as much as you want. We pay you a commission, and you get $25 for every set you sell.” Now Dave didn’t actually know what commissions meant. But after doing the math he figured that, with some effort, he could easily make a lot more money here than he ever could at the quarry. He was prepared to leave his old life and start anew here.
Adversity strikes
Some hardships arose in 2003. The West Bend Housewares Company (formerly West Bend Company) had sold their name to an importing company. This especially hurt Dave because these were people that he had known and trusted throughout his whole career. Hundreds of Americans lost their jobs, and all appliance manufacturing was outscored to China. This would mark the hardest moment in Kitchen Craft’s history by far.