Manufacturing

All manufacturing of our gift bags is done in Lowell, Massachusetts, a historic textile town that is conveniently located only an hour north of our offices. Our bags are made by the dedicated, hard-working employees of Unwrapped, Inc., an industrial stiching factory founded initially, in 1994, to manufacture reusable shopping and produce bags. Today, they manufacture everything from bandages to scout bandanas to ballet shoes, including Lagniappe's gift bags.

Unwrapped employs 75 people in Lowell's Acre neighborhood, making it an anchor in a town that's had to reinvent itself since it's heyday in the nineteenth century. After World War I, most textile manufacturers went south for cheaper labor, just as much manufacturing today is done overseas for the same reason. But Lowell today is much like Lowell of the mid-1800s - home to a vast immigrant community seeking positions to help them establish themselves as Americans. While the Irish and Eastern Europeans made up the mill and manufacturing staffs of Lowell's past, most of Unwrapped's employees today are from Cambodia, a country still reeling from the Khmer Rouge regime and subsequent political turmoil. Many other employees hail from Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and the United States.

Unwrapped pays for ESL courses for more than a dozen students at the St. Julie Asian Center in Lowell and three of those students have continued on to learn computers. Unwrapped practices a promote from within philosophy and four different area supervisor started out as entry level stitchers or packers.

As much as possible, Lagniappe will endeaver to source materials from within the United States and will continue to manufacture domestically to reduce the environmental impact of shipping materials around the globe when there are able suppliers and manufacturers close to home.