Buy Australian: Stainless steel cookware maker Bruce Harding strives to keep manufacturing in Australia

Working with stainless steel for 40 years, Bruce Harding wants to ensure Australia remains a manufacturer of top-quality cookware.

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Bruce Harding has made it his mission to ensure Australia remains a producer of top quality stainless steel cookware.

Having been involved with stainless steel for the best part of 40 years, Mr Harding from Lawson in the Blue Mountains, seized an opportunity to acquire machinery capable of creating cookware when a company he worked with closed its doors.

Bruce Harding pictured at his factory in Lawson where he creates his Oz 21 Stainless Cookware. Picture: Justin Sanson

“I’d been working with Gloda Manufacturing to import and distribute stainless steel when a few years ago they shut down because the market declined,” Mr Harding said.

“Because I’d been working on the new developments in stainless steel from the overseas market, I had Gloda press a fry pan for me. When I tested it, the results were so spectacular that when they shut down I organised to have the equipment shifted from Rockdale to Lawson.”

Bruce has made it his mission to ensure Australia remains a producer of top quality stainless steel cookware. Picture: Justin Sanson

Mr Harding created Oz 21 Stainless Cookware and has spent the past two years fulfilling his passion of making healthy and unbreakable cookware.

“My goal is to produce the healthiest cookware on the market so people aren’t cooking with pans that can harm them,” he said.

“The stainless steel we use is so rigid and tough, I ran my truck over one of our fry pans to see if it would break and it didn’t budge.

“You can put cold water on these pans at 300C and it won’t buckle.”

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So confident of their product, the company offers a lifetime warranty on all its new stainless steel cookware and will repair or replace defective items free of charge.

Bruce Harding with toolmaker David Moore. Picture: Justin Sanson.

While the business is still young, it took a massive hit when restaurants were forced to close during coronavirus lockdown.

“Before COVID, we had just finished the prototype procedure and decided to introduce our new cookware into restaurants before selling direct to the homebuyer, this way we develop two markets and the feedback from chefs was very important,” Mr Harding said.
“Once COVID hit, that all shut down and so did any chance of sales.”

The OZ 21 Clever Cookware range is Australian designed, owned and made and has undergone accreditation to carry the coveted Australian Made logo.

A staff member taking measurements. Picture: Supplied

Australian Made Chief Executive, Ben Lazzaro said the famous Australian Made logo was the true mark of Aussie authenticity.

“It’s Australia’s most trusted, recognised and widely used country of origin symbol, and is underpinned by a third-party accreditation system, which ensures products that carry the logo meet the requirements set out in Australian Consumer Law and are certified as ‘genuinely Australian’,” Mr Lazzaro said.

Interact with Clever Cookware on Facebook or visit online at clevercookware.com.au

Buy Australian is a News Corp Initiative – in partnership with Woolworths and Australian Made Campaign and supported by Red Energy – to help put money back in to our economy by supporting our producers, makers and manufacturers.

Originally published as Buy Australian: Stainless steel cookware maker Bruce Harding strives to keep manufacturing in Australia