Mary Meyer Corporation

A Townshend, Vermont plush-toy and baby-gift maker, in continuous operation since 1933 and now run by the fourth generation of the founding family.

Founded

1933

Headquarters

Townshend, Vermont

Founder

Mary (Lorang) Meyer

Ownership

Family-owned, fourth generation

Current president

Kevin Meyer

Catalog size

500+ active designs

Retailers

10,000+ accounts in 21 countries

Vermont staff

~45 employees

The story

Mary Lorang Meyer was a seamstress raising a family in New York City during the Great Depression. To make extra money, she began sewing pincushions, and then small stuffed toys, from fabric scraps left over from her sewing work. The toys started as gifts for her own children and grew into a side business. The Meyer family moved to Vermont in 1942 and turned the side business into a company.

The second generation (Walter Meyer) ran the company from 1955 to 1990. The third generation — four of Walter's sons, Kevin, Steven, Peter, and Michael — have run the company since. Today the company continues into its 90s, with Kevin Meyer as president, Steven Meyer as VP of Design, and Peter and Michael overseeing operations and warehouse.

What they make

Plush is the core: stuffed animals, baby plush, comfort toys, and an expanding range of baby giftables — teethers, board books, baby mats, character blankets, soft rattles. The catalog rotates aggressively for a heritage brand: roughly 150 new designs are introduced each year and 150 retired, keeping the active line at around 500 SKUs.

Specific lines include Marshmallow Zoo, Putty Toys, Fab Fuzz, FlipFlops, the company's Baby line, and the Taggies and WubbaNub lines acquired or licensed over the years. Several pieces have won Oppenheim Gold Seal awards. The company's tagline since its 2018 rebrand is “love you can feel,” chosen specifically to capture what nearly every customer says first about a Mary Meyer toy — how soft it is.

How they sell

Manufacturing moved overseas in the 1980s, but design, sample-making, and order fulfillment remain in Vermont. The Townshend warehouse ships to about 10,000 wholesale accounts across 21 countries. Most customers are small specialty retailers — baby stores, hospital gift shops, bookstore sidelines, gift shops — though the customer base also includes Target, L.L. Bean, T.J. Maxx, and Yankee Candle. Average wholesale order size is around $500.

Mary Meyer's sales team works the gift-show circuit (Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas) rather than toy shows — the company's primary buyer is a gift-shop owner sourcing baby-shower and new-baby gifts, not a toy-store owner sourcing playthings.

Why they're worth knowing

Three things distinguish Mary Meyer for a buyer. First, the heritage — a 90-plus-year continuous family business is rare in any consumer category, and the story has real meaning for shoppers buying a gift. Second, the focus — this is a plush specialist that has gradually become a baby-gift specialist, with the depth of a category dedicated company rather than a generalist's plush section. Third, the ratio — the catalog is about 30-40% stuffed toys and 60-70% baby gifts (teethers, mats, books, blankets), which makes the line a one-stop solution for a buyer building a baby-gift section.

Notable past customers and licenses signal quality: a Mary Meyer bear once appeared on a magazine cover with Jackie Kennedy.

Where to find them

• Wholesale site: marymeyer.com (retailers can request wholesale access)
• Headquarters: 1 Teddy Bear Lane, Townshend, VT 05353
• Phone: 800-451-4387
• Trade show presence: Atlanta Market, Las Vegas Market, Dallas Total Home & Gift, NY NOW, ABC Kids Expo

Profile based on public information from Mary Meyer's official site, the company's Better Business Bureau record, the Vermont Country and Brattleboro Reformer trade press, and Gifts & Decorative Accessories Magazine. Updated January 2026. Return to all profiles →