Made in America: Tervis Takes Off With 9 New Stores in One Year

Dec. 5, 2012 — -- A year has made quite the difference for the Tervis Co., the North Venice, Fla., maker of beverage tumblers mentioned on "World News."

After the broadcast in 2011, the company behind Tervis tumblers said it sold $10,000-worth of goods via the ABC News link alone. Tervis received so many orders that the company was able to build several new stores. Another one is set to open Friday evening at the Mall of America.

Click here for an updated list of Made in America 2012 gift ideas.

"We've doubled the number of stores we have in just one year," said Kathy Greif, Tervis' vice president of marketing. "We had eight. We now have 17. ... We had a flurry of activity on our website [and] tons of calls -- people talking about how they wanted to buy more gifts that are made in America. They were excited to buy Tervis as gifts for the holidays."

The company now has more than 700 employees -- up 10 percent from last year -- and has hired 100 additional seasonal workers. It said its store sales year over year are up 35 percent and it now has stores in nine states.

"We have licensing agreements with some of the world's largest and most-beloved brands -- so everything from Star Wars to Peanuts, and every sports team you can imagine," Greif told ABC News recently. "Not everybody knows we make our products in America and when they hear that [we do], they're just so proud to hear that we've been making our products in America since 1946, since we were created."

Greif said the company was so dedicated to buying U.S.-made products that Tervis had created an "I support made in America" design due out in January.

"We hear over and over how important it is to buy made in America," she said. "It has created job for us at Tervis. And with the economy ... it's extra important. It's creating jobs in America."

Faribault Woolen Mills

Mich Berthiaume, the vice president of global sales at Faribault Woolen Mills, said her Minnesota company had added 80 additional employees since last year's "World News" mention. She said shoppers were thrilled to find out the legendary brand had been revived after being shuttered for two years.

"In the last 18 months, it truly has been a renaissance," she said. "'Made in America' is so powerful to consumers. This is a movement that's happening all over the United States and abroad. The customer base in the past six months has just risen like I can't believe."

Bodacious Cases Factory

In St. Louis, inventor Arianna Russell teamed up with Bob Walls, the owner of Precise Mold and Engineering, to start her Bodacious Cases iPhone case business.

Russell said her cases were not only made in America, but also held credit cards and were water resistant. The company, which has been open since 2011, has sold 400 of its Band-It cases. Russell said that she'd refused to have her cases made overseas for a cheaper price.

"People were saying, 'Just go to China. You can't do it in the U.S. It's going to be too expensive,'" she said. "I found a way to do it here. I proved them all wrong. And it means a lot to me. ... Our packaging, our cases, our screens -- every little thing, even our T-shirts -- are 100 percent made here in the U.S.A."