Chaco’s Made in USA Claims

Once widely considered a fashion faux pas, it is now not only acceptable to wear socks with sandals, it’s cool. So it’s not surprising that Chaco would feature images of people wearing socks with sandals on its website.

What’s surprising is that Chaco would claim on its website that its custom sandals are “handmade in Rockford, MI” and “hand-crafted in Michigan,” when some if not all of the footbeds and outsoles are imported, according to the website’s much less prominent print, to which TINA.org was alerted by a reader.

Under the FTC’s Made in USA standard, codified in a new Made in USA Labeling Rule, only products that are “all or virtually all” made in the U.S. can be marketed with unqualified made in the USA claims like “handmade in Rockford, MI” and “hand-crafted in Michigan.”

The fact that Chaco also markets its sandals in other places as “Assembled in the USA,” a qualified made in the USA claim, is further indication that its products don’t meet the “all or virtually all” standard. But that doesn’t provide the company legal cover for its misleading unqualified made in the USA claims. These are conflicting claims.

Chaco did not respond to a request for comment for this ad alert.

Chaco shares a parent company with bootmaker Wolverine, which also has a factory in Rockford, Michigan and which made several changes to its made in the USA marketing in response to a TINA.org inquiry in 2018.

Find more of our coverage on deceptively marketed made in the USA shoes here.