When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.
He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.
“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.
The Ridgid brand is owned by Emerson Electric, which licenses it to Techtronic Industries (TTI, parent of Milwaukee and Ryobi) for power tools. Emerson retains the plumbing tools (pipe wrenches, etc.) as its own line. Power tool Ridgid is effectively a licensing arrangement where the branding and the manufacturing are separated.
Why Avoid
Licensing arrangement, Home Depot exclusive, built to a price point. The Ridgid name carries plumbing heritage that the power tool products don't inherit.
They don’t say the power tools got worse. They say that the power tools don’t have the quality that the hand tools were known for, because they’re just a licensing agreement to slap the name on price point built stuff rather than actually built by the same company.
They don’t ever say that Ridgid made power tools before TTI. They say the exact opposite.
I disagree with them about the quality of Ridgid power tools, because they’re great for the price and have a lifetime warranty.