Rave - Alternative to Toys-R-Us

I've discovered a great toy store here in Seattle, Top Ten Toys. It was great seeing different toys made out of wood, not that junky cheep plastic stuff that will fill up our land fills someday. There still were a lot of toys made in China, but if you looked you could find things made in Germany, Italy & Austria to name a few.

I received a response from Haba toys regarding where their toys are made.
Thank you for contacting HABA USA where we as parents ourselves really do care about the products our company produces for our children.

In order for any company to provide as many product offerings as HABA currently does it would be nearly impossible to manufacture every single item within our own factories. We tried to for many years; however we had to expand our product selection in order to continue to provide our consumers what with new diversified products.

Nearly all of our wooden products are still made at our own factories in Germany. We use the natural beech and birch woods that are native to the area. In fact even if an item is final assembled in China, the wooden parts/pieces still come from our factories in Germany and are sent over to CHINA for final assembly. We don’t paint our products, we stain them.

The stains we use on our wooden products are all water based, non-toxic stains (also made in Germany). They are continually tested by an independent, third party laboratory to meet and/or exceed all of the European EN 71, CE and American ASTM safety standards. You can be assured that our stains used on our wooden products are safe. The stains are in fact edible; if your child is teething and he/she bites through the wood this poses no health risk whatsoever.

HABA is committed to healthy working environments and quality products for children, regardless if they are made at our own factories in Bad Rodach, Germany or at subcontracted factories in other countries, including CHINA. We are proud to be one of the few manufacturers using only the best producers in CHINA that are independently inspected and do not endorse unfair labor practices. The easiest way to share with you where our products are made is to provide you with the attached PDF file that is basically my wholesale pricelist (without the prices of course) but with the Country of Origin on each item. I hope this helps!

And a response from Hape Toys
I can understand your concern. Working so close to children and the many children in my life I take the safety of children extremely important. With all of the news as of late we are having a PR piece created about the safety and procedures of HaPe. I will also have a letter emailed to you to confirm the safety of our products signed by the owner himself. I hope this email will suffice in the meantime of waiting for the letter. The products we distribute here in North America they all used the German paint and passed all the rigorous safety tests and is lead free.

I feel a little safer purchasing toys from both of these companies but will probably still test them at home just to make sure.