Liberty Tabletop Resumes Shipping American Made Flatware per guidance issued by Empire State Development “ESD”, the New York State Agency in charge of establishing rules and best practices during national & state emergency

By: Greg Owens, Co-Founder & CEO of Sherrill Manufacturing/Liberty Tabletop

SHERRILL, N.Y. – Like most people and companies in America, management and the employees of Sherrill Manufacturing/Liberty Tabletop are taking this situation very seriously. Our position is to follow not only the guidelines/law as established by New York State but also to follow the “spirit” of that law to protect our employees, customers and community.

For the past week Sherrill Manufacturing production and the warehousing/distribution and fulfillment area of our company have been shut down. We continued to ship only GSA orders in support of the U.S. military per the strictest possible interpretation of the ESD guidance. As part of our initial plan; today a small manufacturing crew began production of flatware for the U.S. Military in support of our GSA contract.

Procedures have been implemented to protect workers including sanitizing the facility, checking everyone’s temperature upon arrival, using protective equipment, social distancing, etc. per guidelines established by the State of New York and further enhanced by a MACNY initiative called “Keep People Safe and factories running” https://www.macny.org/keeping-people-safe-and-factories-running/ .

Orders from customers over the past week have been coming in steadily and we approached ESD for guidance under their rules applying to “Essential services Including warehousing/distribution and logistics, which qualifies for an exemption under the guidelines. After a detailed conversation with the Deputy Director in Mohawk Valley regional office we jointly determined that Liberty Tabletop does qualify for exempt status under those guidelines. Our warehousing/distribution and fulfillment area will be managed by one individual who will be practicing all of the safety measures as per the MACNY initiative and newly established internal procedures. America’s flatware Company will resume fulfillment of orders for our website and Amazon site today.

These are extraordinary times and we must all do our part to ensure the health and safety of our employees, customers and community. Sherrill Manufacturing/Liberty tabletop is committed to do so. On the other end of this national crisis we will be one of many manufacturing companies leading the charge to bring our economy back. That includes doing our part to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs that were shipped overseas during the past 3 decades. We are confident that in the end we will be stronger as both a nation and as a company. Stay safe and keep the faith.