U.S. metalcasting earned a starring role in a segment on NBC Nightly News June 30. The segment spotlighted Lodge Manufacturing Co., its cast iron pans and its metalcasting facility in South Pittsburg, Tenn. Apparently, cast iron cookware is soaring in popularity.

You can watch the video here.

Usually, cast metal components are hidden under sheet metal and plastic or camouflaged in an assembly of parts, fasteners, wiring and rubber. More than $34 billion worth of castings are made in the U.S. in a year, yet this industry is so often unnoticed by the general public.

Casting companies like Lodge—whose products are seen and touched by people in their daily lives, fill a unique role as visual representation of the industry. These companies include East Jordan Iron Works and Neenah, whose names are etched in castings along countless sidewalks and streets. Or Kohler, whose cast plumbing and bath fixtures are touched by millions of people every day, and Ping, who casts its golf club heads in Arizona.   

These ambassadors for the industry are doing it well. Lodge’s cast iron skillets are often given as speaker awards at industry conferences, and at a recent conference I attended, the presenters could not contain their smiles upon receiving their U.S.-made cookware.

Thank you to those casting businesses who serve up our casting examples. It’s not their most important job, and it doesn’t make them the best metalcasters in the industry, but their ambassadorship provides faces to the industry. Without them, the industry would be close to invisible.