Smead-Owned U Brands Recognized as One of the "Top Performing" Office Products Brands in 2020

U Brands, a Smead-owned company, was recently named one of the top-performing brands of 2020 in the office supplies industry by market research firm, The NPD Group.

U Brands was named the top-performing brand in the "Presentation and Reference" category, according to NPD's Retail Tracking Service. Other well-known top-performing brands included in the report were Sharpie, Post It and Gorilla Glue. U Brands has experienced tremendous growth for the past several years. In 2020 the brand was well positioned to help support the millions of workers who had to make the sudden change from working in an office to working from home.

We've been thrilled with U Brands performance since we acquired the company four years ago," says Casey Avent, president of Smead Manufacturing Company.
"Co-founders Ben Hoch and Mike Cerillo saw an opportunity to provide trend-forward products to help consumers bring style to their work and home - and this recent recognition is more clear evidence that vision is coming true."

After being acquired by Smead in 2017, U Brands has seen sustained growth every year since and has staked its claim as one of the leading brands in the office products industry with a diverse line of stationery, storage, home and office products that includes dry-erase boards, cork boards, dry-erase calendar boards, dry-erase markers, magnets, and locker accessories.

"I am incredibly proud of the U Brands team success. At U Brands we are relentlessly focused on providing unique and innovative products to the marketplace, which has propelled us to where we are today" says U Brands co-founder Mike Cerillo, CEO of U Brands. (Smead Manufacturing Company)