About

Founder Background

Our parent company Declaration & Co. was founded in 2010 by a creative Entrepreneur by the name of Lara Kocerka and as luck would have it, Steven shared the same entrepreneurial passion for creating things and joined her within the business a few years later. He would assume the role of operations and would play a key role in the logistical development of taking a product from design to finished product.

Steven's background in retail operations spans close to a decade and during that time he's been working with manufactures and suppliers from all over the world to deliver world class products to his customers. In 2019, Looking at current supply chains, Steven identified an opportunity to integrate manufacturing into their business model and strengthen their vision for the future. Today Steven operates out of a small but efficient studio located in St. Augustine, FL. with a capacity to produce over 30,000 candles a month, no job is too big or small.

“We’ve always believed in creating products that provided great quality at tremendous value.  Most of the time, the value aspect is tougher to achieve than any other variable because of costs associated through the supply chain, so in 2019 we fixed that. We vertically integrated candle manufacturing into our core business.”  Steven Kocerka

What is Modern Manufacturing

We've set out to create a conscious American Manufacturing company that thinks about more than the bottom line. People, places, partners and products are all important to our mission and we promise to be socially responsible in our approach to American manufacturing, creating jobs and preventing waste, all while creating the best product possible.

In addition, Modern manufacturing is sustainable and socially responsible. We are committed to our community and job creation.  Our views on making profits must align with that or else we fail ourselves, our partners, customers and our world. 

We will not sacrifice quality of products, people or processes just to make a dollar.  Our commitment to make the best Poured Goods possible starts with us. We hold ourselves accountable every step of the way to make sure we are aligned with our founding vision.

Examples of Sustainability

• We pledge to make Poured Goods with as little negative impact on our earth as possible and we will continue thinking of ways to reduce our carbon footprint
• All candles are made from renewable energies like SOY wax
• Waste is repurposed when possible, once our candles are cooled and the wick trimming phase begins, we make it a point to save the excess wicks. These wicks will be used again for wicks within our smaller candles
• All containers we use, are at the very minimum recyclable, however we encourage re purposing them
• The environmental impact from packaging, labeling, shipping and receiving are considered every step of the way and we will do our best and continue to improve our process to reduce waste every chance we get.
• While we cannot say that we don’t produce waste, we can say that we are absolutely 100% conscious of our impact on the earth and our local communities

Examples of Social Responsibility

• We pledge to donate time, money and resources to help build up our local communities.
• Fundraiser programs for schools, organizations, not for profits that need to raise money
• Equality matters to us and will always be at the forefront of hiring, partnerships, procurement and opportunities to help create change for the betterment of all our fellow humans.
• People first Profits second – our team will always take priority over the bottom line.

• Job creation, bringing manufacturing back to the forefront of America, creating jobs for hardworking Americans and boosting our local economy in the process

What does Poured Goods manufacture?

Right now, Poured Goods makes candles with melts and room diffusers in the pipeline.  We have plans to expand into additional Poured Good segments as we see the demand.