Red, white and blue ... and green
Sunday, June 21, 2009
By Marian Accardi
Times Business Writer marian.accardi@htimes.com
Local plant now produces 2 lines of recycled U.S. flags Some of the American flags made at a Huntsville flag manufacturer now have a touch of green.
CF Flag produces American and state flags and custom flags and banners at its factory on Shields Road in Chase Industrial Park. Earlier this year, it launched two lines of recycled U.S. flags - using polyesters and nylons made from recycled soda bottles. A premium version, the Eco-Glory, is created using sewn stripes and embroidered stars and is fully recyclable; the REprint is printed directly on recycled polyester.
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"I think they're going to be very popular," said Debbie Russell, the company's vice president.
Though the new flags make up only a small percentage of CF Flag's business, Russell expects that will change. "A lot of companies want to purchase recycled materials."
The flags were a hit, she said, at the General Services Administration's International Products and Services Expo held early this month in San Antonio.
From the company's perspective, offering the flags is "the socially responsible thing to do," Russell said.
The recycled flags are available locally at Alabama Flag & Banner.
CF Flag was named Chicago Flag when it was founded in Chicago in 1898. It was relocated to Huntsville, then purchased in 1978 by Russell's father, Jack Houser, the company's president.
Each year the company makes about 1 million flags - made of cotton, nylon and standard and recycled polyester. At full production, the company, which has about 120 employees, makes about 5,000 flags a day, Russell said. he peak production time is January through September, yet there's little slowdown. "We use downtime to build up our inventory," Russell said, "because everything we make is going out the door."
The company sells to government agencies, flag dealers and wholesalers. The most popular item remains the 3-by-5-foot nylon American flag, said Jon Houser, vice president of sales and Jack Houser's son. That's the flag sold at discount and home-improvement retailers for residential use, he said. Next in demand is the 5-by-8-foot flag, mostly for commercial users.
Houser and Russell point out that their company's American flags are made in the U.S., as well as all of the materials. Sewn into each flag is a Flag Manufacturers Association of America label reading "Certified Made in the U.S.A.," certifying that the flag is made in the U.S. with domestic materials and that each step of its manufacture was completed in U.S. facilities with U.S. labor. "People still want U.S.-made American flags," Russell said.
Though Houser said his father has continued to expand the business over the years, the languishing economy has taken its toll. Cutbacks in consumer spending hurts business, he said, as well as the competition from the growing number of American flags being imported.
"I don't think we've been hit as hard because of our government contracts," Houser said. Government agencies "are still buying flags, but we've definitely felt an impact."
About 25 percent of CF Flag's business is with the government, he said. And the company is one of four or five in the country that makes interment flags for veterans' caskets for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The company had a record year in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2001, with $26 million in revenue.
The day before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the company said it was moving to a three-day workweek. But, after 9/11, a five-day workweek was put in place and a second shift added.
"In the last two weeks of September, we sold what we normally sell in six months," Russell said. "We sold every single flag we had in those two weeks."
