For more than a decade, refrigerator manufacturers in the United States have fielded angry calls from customers who complained about water filters leaking or overflowing, ruining their kitchen floors. Companies quickly discovered the culprit: thousands of counterfeit water filters sold online each year that are made with substandard parts.
“We talk about counterfeits like handbags and baseball caps and N.F.L. merch, but this is actually different,” said Jill Notini, vice president of communications and marketing for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a trade group that includes GE Appliances, Whirlpool, LG Electronics and Samsung. “It brings in health consequences.”
In addition to malfunctioning, fake water filters bought online can contain non-food-grade plastic that introduces dangerous chemicals, including arsenic and ethanol, into clean drinking water, she said.
To battle the scourge of fake water filters, refrigerator manufacturers have worked with Customs and Border Protection to seize shipments, started a public awareness campaign and redesigned their filters to insert computer chips that detect dupes.
Now, GE Appliances is going further by bringing the production of water filters in-house. The company, which is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Haier, is holding a grand opening on Wednesday for a factory in the company’s industrial park in Louisville, Ky., that will produce its own water filters for the first time, a move that executives say will make it easier to spot fakes and maintain quality control. The company produces refrigerators for the U.S. market in Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee and Mexico.
“Water quality is a concern for close to two-thirds of U.S. consumers, which is why GE Appliances has invested millions of dollars in our ice, water and filtration research and testing labs here in Kentucky,” James Downey, who leads the company’s water filter business as senior director of product management, said in statement. “We now own the entire process, which will give consumers greater confidence they’re getting the genuine, certified filters they expect.”
The highly automated factory will produce several million filters a year with 30 employees, the company said. The plant, which was designed by the Tennessee-based ATC Automation, is equipped with robotic pick-and-place systems guided by cameras. GE Appliances opted to move production in-house about two years ago, after one of its suppliers left the business and the other moved to Mexico, said Julie Wood, senior director of corporate communications.
The new plant is in line with the company’s decades-long push to bring production back to the United States. The company pledged in August that it would spend $3 billion on boosting domestic production over the next five years.
Some consumers have complained on social media that the company is prompting customers to buy expensive filters that must be replaced every six months, just as printer companies forced customers to buy expensive ink cartridges. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the filters is about $50. Customers who don’t want filtered water can get a free bypass plug from the company.
Farah Stockman is a Times business reporter writing about manufacturing and the government policies that influence companies that make things in the United States.
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