I heard there is a “Hopkinsville†line in the Mexico plant.
The equipment is one thing, the chemicals Hopkinsville used for the covers, can that be replicated outside the USA?
That’s the challenge.
I’m not sure who all went to Brunswick, I’m sure some did, but others did not and we will see how that shakes out in the future.
I’m still a made in USA guy whenever possible so I’ll throw all the Hopkinsville equipment until it’s wore out.
If you want to be a Made in USA guy, I’m not going to argue about it. Wouldn’t matter anyway.
But what does “can [Hopkinsville chemicals] be replicated outside of the USA†mean? I understand that they might not be able to replicate Hopkinsville exactly with different suppliers, but what does that have to do with their location?
I tend to think about it like this, and let's use pharmaceuticals as an analogy. A particular vaccine that is used to treat a sickness is readily available and distributed in a country, or let's even say worldwide, and it is cheap and easy to access, to the point that anyone can go get vaccinated for cheap. However, in the US, it costs 10 to 25 times as much. Why? because while a particular company is US based, it it owns the patent to that vaccine, which prevents it from being reproduced cheaply. That in turn makes the availability of it more scarce, which drives up the prices. That's why some vaccines are easier to get outside the country than inside.
Well, let's reverse that. If some chemicals that EBI uses to make covers are patented by another company in that given country, that would make it harder for them to use their formulas to create that cover, even though it was easily able to be made here.
In short, the issue of trademarks and patents could cause the issue here, where Brunswick/EBI may not be able to recreate those chemicals for those covers due to patent infringement in the country where the plant is located.
BL.
