Who Owns Yeti And Where Are The Coolers Made?

If you enjoy spending time in the wilderness, you know that having a few useful gadgets around can or break any trip off the grid. That's particularly true if you're taking any perishables along with you, with a good cooler typically being the best way to keep such items safe. And if you've explored the cooler market of late, you've no doubt spent time looking at those bearing the Yeti brand.

Yeti is, after all, regarded as one of the better options on the high-end cooler market, with the brand's hard and soft shelled options largely earning raves from users across the globe. Those coolers are, perhaps, celebrated a little more in the United States than other countries, as Yeti is indeed a brand that boasts American origins. The company was actually founded in Austin, Texas back in 2006. In the two decades since, Yeti's cooler line has grown to compete with long-established outdoor brands like Igloo and Coleman.

That success is largely the work of brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, who founded Yeti in '06. In their first six years guiding the Yeti ship, the Driftwood, Texas natives transformed their little cooler startup into a $40 billion outdoor gear empire. But in 2012, they sought outside investment to grow the business further, with Cortec Group securing a controlling interest in Yeti. Roy and Ryan Seiders are, of course, still involved with Yeti, but in 2018 it became a publicly traded company, meaning ownership not belongs to a shareholder collective. 

Though Yeti is not yet competing with tech-enabled offerings from outfits like Makita, it's worth noting that a cooler was the first product to bear the company's branding. As the story goes, Yeti's founders Roy and Ryan Seiders began developing their first cooler out of frustration, as they felt the products available to them historically just weren't tough enough to handle their rough and tumble Texas adventures. Thus, the brand's iconic Tundra Cooler was born, with the hardshell cooling case still serving as the cornerstone of its cooler line.

While the first few Tundras were likely made in the USA, with demand growing so rapidly, there are obvious questions as to whether Yeti's U.S. facilities could keep up with production. Fans of the Yeti brand may be happy to know that at least some Tundra coolers are still made in America. So too are the company's popular Loadout Buckets. 

It would seem, however, that not all of the offerings in Yeti's Tundra Cooler line originate in U.S. factories. According to a recent YouTube video from AllAmerican.org, many are actually made in Mexico these days. In addition to some of Yeti's Roadie coolers. Per the same video, some of Yeti's soft-sided Hopper coolers are actually made in the Philippines. That may frustrate some, though Yeti clearly isn't trying to hide the manufacturing locations of its coolers. In fact, that info should be clearly marked either on the tag, or somewhere on the bottom of the cooler itself. So feel free to check there on your Yeti gear if you're curious.