SIC 3263 Fine Earthenware (Whiteware) Table and Kitchen Articles

SIC 3263

This industry consists of companies manufacturing semivitreous earthenware table and kitchen articles. These include fine semivitreous whiteware, semivitreous earthenware used for cooking and serving food, and both commercial and household earthenware. Manufacturers of vitreous china table and kitchen articles are included in SIC 3262: Vitreous China Table and Kitchen Articles.

NAICS CODE(S)

327112

Vitreous China, Fine Earthenware and Other Pottery Product Manufacturing

Fine earthenware table and kitchen articles have been made for centuries. Earthenware is porous, coarse, and opaque—unlike vitrified porcelain and bone china, which are nonporous and translucent. All are considered pottery and begin with clay and other raw materials, but earthenware is fired at lower temperatures and is more breakable.

Many styles and types of earthenware have become popular as everyday dinnerware. Since earthenware was less expensive than bone china or other vitreous tableware, sales of it were less affected by economic downturns. China and porcelain products have begun to draw more consumers, however, especially from high-income households headed by 45- to 54-year-olds. The bridal market also accounted for a large percentage of retail sales of semivitreous earthenware.

The oldest form of pottery, earthenware, was made in China as early as the ninth century, where it was dried in the sun. Kilns became the source of heat to fire pottery that becomes modern dinnerware, but in the industry as a whole, much of the technology is the same as it was centuries ago. Not much has changed—including the labor-intensive nature of the work and the skilled craftsmen who are employed to manufacture products with high standards of quality—but pottery wheels are electric, and a jiggerblade can speedily shape a plate.

In the early 1990s manufacturers were beginning to respond to consumer concerns about lead content in chinaware. Some manufacturers changed the recipes of their glazes to reduce the lead content. Ceramic goods imported from other countries were more often to blame, since many countries did not have strict lead content rules. California's Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, required labeling on chinaware, warning consumers if a product exposed them to more than 0.5 micrograms of lead per day.

Although most of the same companies that manufactured earthenware also...

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