This High-End Kitchen Appliance Brand Is Owned By Samsung

Corporate portfolios can be loaded with surprises. Take, for example, Qingdao Haier: The Chinese company has actually owned one of the United States' biggest appliance brands, GE, since 2016. Meanwhile, Whirlpool owns several popular makers of kitchen devices, including KitchenAid and Insinkerator. A company as large as Samsung is bound to have many businesses under its wing. One of them just so happens to be the premium kitchen appliance brand, Dacor.

Samsung Electronics America entered an agreement to buy Dacor in August 2016, a little over 50 years since the latter company's founding. While the sale amount wasn't disclosed publicly, a 2018 report in Korea JoongAng Daily valued it at $150 million. We have found no public information about what exactly prompted the sale. However, the Dacor's then-president and CEO Chuck Huebner did highlight Samsung's global presence as a key to facilitating future growth.

Dacor's beginnings go all the way back to California in 1948, when co-founder Stan Joseph created the very first self-contained kitchen vent hood design for home use. As his appliance store grew, he and his family would eventually incorporate it into Distinctive Appliance Corporation, or DACOR for short. Over the decades, the company built its name both as a high-end appliance brand and as a kitchen innovator. It remained American-owned and operated until 2016.

Dacor now has to deal with any baggage that comes with Samsung's reputation as an appliance-maker. Some customers think poorly of the latter company, and Mashed counts it among the most overpriced appliance brands for its lackluster reliability. Multiple people on social media platforms like Reddit believe that Dacor has gotten worse since its acquisition.

Folks have also expressed doubts about whether Dacor devices continue to be fully American-made. A 2016 press release on the Samsung purchase said there would be no changes to its U.S.-based manufacturing, but a Reddit user alleged this is no longer true. One commenter said their manufacturing company stopped supplying parts after being informed that Dacor's own California plant was being shut down. The poster further claimed that production moved to Thailand in 2023. While we have been unable to verify that account, Dacor's manufacturing facility in City of Industry is marked as "permanently closed" on Google Maps. Photographic evidence indicates that the company's logo was removed from the building sometime between 2022 and 2024. The Dacor website currently provides no information on where its appliances are manufactured.

Customer reviews on ConsumerAffairs suggest that people just aren't happy with Dacor in general. As of August 2026, a whopping 82.9% of reviews on the platform are negative, with one- and two-star reviews comprising 421 out of 508 total entries. Some of the more recent reviews complain about an oven door's insulation melting after its first use, a freezer that needed repairs after five months, awful customer service, and expensive repairs — things you typically wouldn't expect from a high-end brand.