GSA Drops 11 Flatware Vendors’ False USA-Made Listings, Leaving Sherrill as the Only USA Maker

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has found that 11 companies listed overseas-made flatware as made in the USA on its GSA Advantage purchasing website, and it will remove those claims, Sen. Charles Schumer said on March 10, 2016. That leaves Liberty Tabletop, made by Sherrill Manufacturing in Sherrill, New York, as the only flatware brand on the site listed as made in the USA.

The review

GSA Advantage is an online store where federal agencies, and many state and local governments, buy products from approved suppliers. In January, Schumer asked the GSA to review its “Made in America” listings after Sherrill complained that competitors’ imported flatware was labeled as domestic. The GSA told Schumer it had finished an initial review and that the 11 companies could no longer list their flatware as made in the USA because it was made overseas.

Schumer said more vendors might be misrepresenting their products and asked other GSA suppliers to watch for false listings.

Why it matters to Sherrill

Sherrill Manufacturing took over the former Oneida Ltd. factory and is the last flatware maker in the USA. It sells widely to the U.S. military and to federal agencies with domestic-sourcing requirements. The Oneida Dispatch reported that the company had about 40 employees and paid more for materials and services to keep its product fully USA-made.

A wider problem

Four days later, on March 14, the watchdog group Truth in Advertising (TINA.org) said it had sent the GSA a warning letter. The group said it found more than 100 products on GSA Advantage labeled “Made in the United States of America” that were made in China, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines and elsewhere. The flatware issue came up again a decade later; see our 2026 coverage.