Gearing up for Thanksgiving dinner, with a nod to Made in America

La Brea Bakery, Libby's and Cutco knives hope they all have a spot at the table.

ByABC News
November 22, 2017, 8:03 AM

— -- With Thanksgiving just a few days away, La Brea Bakery is selling more than 20 million pounds of bread, just in time for sopping up gravy and making sandwiches out of leftover turkey.

According to La Brea, it's the busiest time of the year for the company.

"Over 2,000 of our employees are gearing up for this time of the year, making our baguettes, our rolls, you know, all of those favorite things we look forward to," said Allison Liebovich, an associate brand manager for La Brea. "I just can't wait to break bread with my own family."

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La Brea Bakery started in Los Angeles and has been making breads and foods for more than 28 years. Last year, La Brea introduced its first "nationally available" farm-to-table bread, including sourdough and French demi baguettes, using Fortuna wheat from a family-owned farm in Montana.

"When you talk about Montana," said farmer Dean Folkvord of Wheat Montana Farms, "it's a special place because of this fresh air and all these wide-open spaces. ... It's the best-tasting bread in the world."

Liebovich, whose grandparents were farmers, said it was tremendously important to La Brea that its wheat come from U.S. farmers.

"To know that there are families that I can relate to, that are in Montana, North Dakota, across the U.S., that are working diligently every day of the year tirelessly, you know, putting their backs on the line, it means so much to me," she said. "We want to support the American farmer and when we gather around the Thanksgiving table this season, we know that we're supporting our local friends, family and neighbors."

And this holiday season, La Brea Bakery is one of many companies showing love to the U.S. worker, on the farm and in the factory.

PHOTO: Three hours outside of Chicago, the small town of Morton, Illinois, is responsible for 80 percent of the canned pumpkins that Americans eat, according to Libby's canning company.
Three hours outside of Chicago, the small town of Morton, Illinois, is responsible for 80 percent of the canned pumpkins that Americans eat, according to Libby's canning company. According to the company, "Libby's contains 100 percent Dickinson pumpkins. We do not add any salt, sugar, flavor or preservatives to our canned pumpkin."

Three hours outside of Chicago, the small town of Morton, Illinois, is responsible for 80 percent of the canned pumpkins that Americans eat, according to Libby's canning company.

Libby's, which started as a family business around 1868, is still going strong. According to the company, "Libby’s contains 100 percent Dickinson pumpkins. We do not add any salt, sugar, flavor or preservatives to our canned pumpkin."

"It's very fulfilling, knowing that we contract with the growers, the farmers. I get to watch the crop grow, help with the harvest and then see it go through [canning] process and see it shipped out," said Jim Ackerman, an agriculture manager at Nestle-Libby's Pumpkin. "And, I very much enjoy baking the pie for Thanksgiving."

Brian Tanner, a fourth-generation farmer, said his pumpkins are harvested, prepped and shipped across Morton to Libby's canning company.

"We're all very proud of the fact that we're from the 'pumpkin capital of the world,'" said Brian Tanner, a fourth-generation pumpkin farmer. "No matter where I go in this country and meet people all over [and] they can always relate back to eating pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving."

Lastly, longtime fans of Cutco knives shared with ABC News how they planned to use the brand's cutlery for Thanksgiving.

"This Thanksgiving, I will be using my Cutco knives to prepare all of the vegetables that we need for dinner," said Rachel Hutchens of Leigh, Utah.

"I also love the spatula spreader for frosting and serving our Thanksgiving desserts," said Erin Birch of Orchard, New York.

Cutco knives, a company of about 500 factory workers in Olean, New York, told ABC News that it is hiring and that the average year of service for its workers was 18 years.