Acorn Industrials Inc. (AII) is a manufacturer of kettles used in the food processing industry. In the 1980's, it was one of the most prominent suppliers in the U.S. offering a full range of high-quality industrial-size kettles. During the late 1990s, most of AII's competitors started outsourcing their production to low labor cost countries. The CEO and owner of AII, Mark LeBlanc, refused to follow suit. Instead, he turned AII into a niche producer of kettles equipped with non-stick coatings which were their most technologically advanced product line and were less li