Kingsford is the number one brand of charcoal in America and is a product many folks use without ever thinking about. I mean, what could be more natural than firing up your grill with a bag of Kingsford Blue?
But how much do you really know about this iconic product? One of the more popular questions about Kingsford concerns its manufacture. More specifically, people want to know, “Is Kingsford charcoal made in the USA?”
The answer is, Kingsford charcoal is made exclusively in the USA. Kingsford has five US based manufacturing facilities that produce their briquettes and two more US based facilities that produce an essential component for the briquettes.
Where Are the Kingsford Production Facilities?
Kingsford operates five manufacturing plants that produced their charcoal briquettes. These facilities are located at
- Burnside, Kentucky
- Summer Shade, Kentucky
- Springfield, Oregon
- Belle, Missouri
- Parsons, West Virginia.
In addition, Kingsford operates two more facilities that do not produce the finished briquettes but do produce the char used at the other facilities for briquette production. The char producing facilities are located:
- Glen, Mississippi
- Beryl, West Virginia
How Many Americans Does Kingsford Employ?
These numbers are estimates but give a rough idea of how many Americans are employed by the production of Kingsford charcoal.
- Parsons, WV = 150 employees according to this reference.
- Burnside, KY = 125 employees according to this reference.
- Belle, MO = 124 according to this reference.
- Springfield, OR = 80 according to this reference.
- Summer Shade, KY = 85 according to this reference.
- Glen, MS = 15 according to this reference.
- Beryl, WV estimate 15 based upon Glen, MS.
This adds up to 594 manufacturing jobs.
According to this reference, Kingsford employs 684 people nationally suggesting that another ~90 individuals are employed in Corporate, Sales, Marketing, HR, etc.
How Much Charcoal Does Kingsford Produce?
Kingsford does not provide an exact production number.
The industry stats that they do provide state that they have an 80% market share and that 1 million tons of wood scraps are converted into charcoal every year.
That is a LOT of charcoal being made in the USA!