The monolithic single-industry model has evolved as manufacturers see the benefits of being smaller and paying attention to how patterns of consumption, ownership and use are shifting.
An example of this might be a company like Anchor Steam Brewery, which started as a saloon in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood in 1896. The scent of hops tells you you’re in the Potrero neighborhood, where they’re still brewing beer and producing small-batch bourbon. Today’s consumer, says Anchor’s Keith Greggor, “is much more likely to back the local guy.” Or there’s recent arrival Jamieson Leadbetter, a fourth-generation baker whose grandfather gave him this advice when he decided to continue the Portland, Me.-based family business in San Francisco: “Pick your community well. You’re not there solely to make money; you’re there to play a larger role.”
Alex RumanDespite the higher costs, 4th-generation baker Jamieson Leadbetter opened his bake shop in San Francisco.
Times have changed. So has business, and it’s time to rethink, and indeed rebrand, American manufacturing.
As Mark Dwight, who started SFMade in 2010, explains, “For decades we have developed a culture of disposability — from consumer goods to medical instruments and machine tools. To fuel economic growth, marketers replaced longevity with planned obsolescence — and our mastery of technology has given birth to ever-accelerating unplanned obsolescence. I think there is increasing awareness that this is no longer sustainable on the scale we have developed.”
Dwight, who walks the walk as someone who make stuff right here in San Francisco as CEO of Rickshaw Bagworks, had initially started SFMade with the intention of creating a brand identity for the products produced within San Francisco city limits, something he calls “geographic ingredient branding.”
More easily understood as something akin to terroir, geographic ingredient branding emphasizes “pride of place,” which runs deep in cities like San Francisco and New York. “I saw this as a way to ‘brand’ the history, culture, personality and natural beauty of our city as a means to uniquely differentiate our local manufacturers,” says Dwight. “I coined the term ‘geographic ingredient branding’ as an emulation of successful technology ingredient branding campaigns such as ‘Intel Inside.’”
Joe MontanaRickshaw’s messenger bags can be ordered and customized online. Every bag is built to order and made in downtown San Francisco.
Rickshaw does both manufacturing and retailing out of its factory. Factory and online stores like theirs engage the customer base and replace the old wholesale model with a direct-to-consumer version that’s critical in protecting narrow profit margins. These are “hybrid models not characteristic of traditional manufacturing,” Sofis says.
Things made in places like San Francisco or New York command a desire-by-association (though I’m also sure creative individuals in less name-brand locals could adopt many of the business synergies and sustainable efforts discussed here). To be sure, there may be a higher cost of doing business in major metropolitan centers like these, but at the same time what gets made is largely driven by design and by consumer demand. Six-year-old Ritual Coffee Roasters, owned by Eileen Hassi, is emblematic of the city’s obsession not just with caffeine connoisseurship but with the particulars of sourcing, roasting, technique and myriad subcultures. The story of Timbuk2 bags (co-founded by Dwight, who now runs Rickshaw) is one of bicycle culture, which has expanded into a broader narrative of sustainable culture and transportation. With a local apparel company like Betabrand, the essence of San Francisco is conveyed in the very apace-with-technology concept of creating a new limited-edition product every week.
The era of the huge central factory or farm for that matter is ending.
Instead a new model of many small local units linked into a network is evolving.
The network will replace the hub.
