Appliance Tip of the Day: Who REALLY Made Your Appliance?

Did you know that Amana is owned by Maytag? Yep, so is Admiral, Norge, and Magic Chef. And did you know that Kitchen Aid and Sub-Zero are both owned by Whirlpool? Yeah, man, all those appliance brands are just an illusion–they’re all made by just four, count ‘em, four manufacturers. Oh, there used to really be a lot more manufacturers before mergers and acquisitions became vogue. The table below is kind of a road map for who makes which brands. Yes, Grasshopper, the many are really just the few…four, to be exact.

"But what about Kenmore, why aren’t they in the table?," you ask. That’s because Kenmore doesn’t make anything but money. “Kenmore” is just a label owned by Sears and represents nothing more than a bunch of bureaucrats at Sears who get one of the Big Four to make their stuff for them. Period. There ain’t no “Kenmore” factory in Malaysia or anywhere else. You can decode your Kenmore model number here to find out which one of the Big Four dunnit.