Philly got shafted in Pa. Chamber’s ‘Coolest Thing Made in PA’ bracket

When I got the first news release about the “Coolest Thing Made in PA” bracket and saw Sheetz was a contender but Wawa wasn’t, and that Eat’n Park cookies made the cut but not Tastykakes, I hit delete last month and sent that email to the trash, right where it belonged.

But the PA Chamber of Business and Industry, which created the bracket and picked the items within it, continued to choose violence by sending me weekly news releases on how the bracket was narrowing, based on online votes on Twitter. These indignities culminated with a news release on April 4, announcing 32,000 votes had been cast and Pittsburgh’s Primanti Brothers sandwich was crowned the winner.

How, you may ask, did a sandwich with french fries on it beat out the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews, all of which were made in Philly and generally considered to be very awesome? Because this bracket was baloney (and not Seltzer’s Lebanon Bologna, which was a first-round contender).

Out of the 32 Pennsylvania-made things in the tournament, only one was from Philly. Guess what it was. You won’t have to try hard, just pick the easiest cliché you can think of. That’s right, it was a cheesesteak, a Dalessandro’s cheesesteak, specifically.

As if relying on clichés wasn’t bad enough, in the first round of voting the PA Chamber had the gall to put Dalessandro’s up against Pampers diapers, a product that literally catches human waste and is made by a company headquartered in Ohio.

I had many questions — and even more grievances — all of which I took to Luke Bernstein, president and chief executive officer of the PA Chamber.

According to Bernstein, the chamber created the bracket this year to show Pennsylvania’s strong history of manufacturing (yeah, manufacturing sham brackets) and bring awareness to products made right here in Pennsylvania.

“People didn’t know Zippo lighters are made here, or Martin Guitars,” he said. “It was remarkable to me how many people said ‘I didn’t know that was made in Pennsylvania.’”

When choosing items for the first round, Bernstein said his staff picked a variety of products from across the state, trying not to duplicate anything. Since Sheetz and Wawa are both convenience stores with made-to-order food, only one could make the cut, he said.

“It was very hotly contested, even internally we struggled, but we stuck with one,” he said.

Bernstein stressed membership in the chamber did not factor into whether a company was chosen for the bracket (Totally unrelated to anything at all, did you know Sheetz is a member of the PA Chamber but Wawa isn’t?).

Next, I wanted to know how items like Pampers diapers and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, whose parent companies are headquartered in Ohio and Wisconsin, made the cut, when absolute legends like the Phanatic and Gritty, both of whom were birthed into existence in Philly, did not.

While most of the companies chosen are headquartered in Pennsylvania, Bernstein said a few did have headquarters elsewhere, but manufacture products here. There’s a Procter & Gamble plant in Mehoopany that makes Pampers and a Harley-Davidson factory in York, he said.

Bernstein said the chamber spread the love when picking the 32 items (”We’re based in Harrisburg so we’re a neutral bracket”), but a detailed analysis by The Inquirer, which involved Googling all 32 products, revealed something quite different.

While most cities and towns like Philly were represented only once in the bracket, there were three products from York — Rutter’s iced tea, York Barbell, and Harley-Davidson — and a whopping seven from Pittsburgh: Primanti Bros., the Astrobotic lunar lander, Duolingo, Metaverse (from Facebook’s parent company, Meta), Wabtec locomotives, PPG Paints, and Aurora self-driving cars.

We’re gonna take a wild guess and say there’s a lot of Penguins and Steelers fans over at the PA Chamber.

Listen, the fact that lunar landers are being made anywhere in our state is pretty cool, but we’re going to hazard a guess and say a lot of those Pittsburgh tech companies wouldn’t be where they are today without the ENIAC, the world’s first programmable general-purpose electronic computer, which was invented in 1946, right here in Philly, at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bernstein, who took my grievances with grace, said the chamber plans to expand the bracket next year to 64 items, to accommodate more products. He said the chamber heard from others who were upset that Middleswarth Potato Chips and Bradley Cooper, both of which made in the Keystone State, did not make the cut.

“We didn’t even have an ice cream place on there, and that was a miss,” he said. “I think we have a lot of great opportunity to build and grow.”

Following our conversation, the PA Chamber put out a call on Twitter, asking what products they missed in this year’s bracket that should be included next year.

So go forth, Philly-area folks, and flood them with suggestions. From the Slinky to bubble gum, the lightning rod to the entire foundation of our country as we know it, a lot of cool things were made in our area, and we’d put them up against a sandwich with french fries on it anytime.