Return of Play-Doh
Hasbro: Product will again be made in the U.S.
Play-Doh will soon be made in the U.S. again — at a Massachusetts plant in East Longmeadow — for the first time in more than a decade.
Hasbro Inc., owner of the 61-year-old brand of children’s reusable modeling compound, said it’s made plans with manufacturing partner Cartamundi NV to make Play-Doh at Cartamundi’s East Longmeadow factory, where it also produces the Monopoly, Game of Life, Candy Land, Risk and Clue board games for Hasbro.
Currently produced in China and Turkey, PlayDoh was last made in the U.S. in 2004. Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro’s move for U.S. production follows the fifth consecutive year of growth for Play-Doh, which Hasbro acquired from Tonka Corp. in 1991 and has grown into one its most international and successful brands, with sales in 80 countries.
“We regularly review our global sourcing strategy and make adjustments to optimize the execution of our brands,” Hasbro spokeswoman Julie Duffy said.
“This is incremental production to meet demand. Given the growth of our North American business and the Play-Doh brand, we are creating plans to bring some of the production of Play-Doh to the U.S. by the second half of 2018,” she said.
According to Duffy, the decision has nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s plans or policies regarding U.S. manufacturing, trade or taxes on imports.
Hasbro disclosed it was bringing some of its PlayDoh production back home at its investor meeting at the New York Toy Fair this month, and The Wall Street Journal reported the news yesterday.
Hasbro, which generated revenue of $5.02 billion last year, has not owned any of its manufacturing facilities since 2015. It instead outsources manufacturing from a global network of vendor partners including the Belgium-based Cartamundi, which bought the East Longmeadow plant from Hasbro in 2015.
Hasbro said its games have been continuously manufactured in the U.S. since 1963. In addition to East Longmeadow, where 400-plus workers produce 30 million Hasbro games per year, the company’s “Magic: The Gathering” trading cards are made at a Texas facility owned by Cartamundi.
Hasbro told The Wall Street Journal that Cartamundi plans to hire 20 more employees in East Longmeadow to support the plant’s Play-Doh production.