Concrete Block and Brick Manufacturing (United States)

NAICS 2022 code 327331 — an industry primer for public-market and private investors

1. Overview

This industry makes the gray building blocks you see stacked on almost every U.S. construction site: concrete masonry units (CMU) — the hollow "cinder blocks" used for walls and foundations — plus concrete brick and decorative/architectural block. It is a mature, cyclical, commodity-manufacturing business whose fortunes rise and fall with construction spending.

The single most important fact for an investor is economic geography: block is cheap, heavy, and expensive to ship, so it is made in hundreds of small local plants and sold within a short truck radius. That gives regional producers durable local pricing power but caps how large any one plant can grow.[1][15]

• Why an investor cares: it is a real-asset, hard-to-disrupt business with local moats, but it is also low-growth and tied tightly to the building cycle and to cement prices.
• Public route: there is no pure-play public concrete-block company. Exposure comes bundled inside diversified building-materials names — CRH, Cemex, Titan America, Amrize — where block is a small slice of a much larger cement/aggregates/concrete portfolio.[5][6][7]
• Private route: this is fundamentally a private, family-owned, and private-equity-roll-up industry. Most of the roughly 360 firms are closely held regional operators.[1]

2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (NAICS 327331): establishments that manufacture concrete block and concrete brick — load-bearing CMU, architectural/decorative block (split-face, ground-face, burnished, slump, screen block), concrete brick and veneer units, paving and patio block, sound-wall and fence block, lintel and column shapes, and certain prestressed or precast blocks and bricks.[13][17] Many of these same plants also make pavers and segmental retaining-wall units ("hardscapes").

A typical plant batches cement and aggregates into a stiff, near-zero-slump mix; feeds it into interchangeable molds; compacts it with compression and vibration; strips the "green" units; cures them under controlled temperature and moisture; and then cubes, stores, and ships them. Architectural units may be split, ground, burnished, or colored. Quality control centers on mix consistency, dimensions, density, absorption, compressive strength, curing, and lot traceability; ASTM C90 governs load-bearing CMU specifications, ASTM C1634 covers concrete brick, and ASTM C140 is the principal sampling and testing method.[12][18]

What it explicitly excludes — and the boundaries matter for anyone sizing the industry:

• Clay brick (the traditional red fired brick) is a different industry — NAICS 327121, Brick and Structural Clay Tile Manufacturing. General Shale (owned by Austria's Wienerberger) and Glen-Gery (owned by Australia's Brickworks) are clay-brick makers and sit outside 327331.[4][13]
• Ready-mix concrete (wet concrete delivered by truck) is NAICS 327320.[13]
• Concrete pipe is NAICS 327332, and other precast products (panels, vaults, pavers reported separately) fall under NAICS 327390, Other Concrete Product Manufacturing.[13]

Ownership mix: a fragmented base of independent, often multi-generational family businesses, overlaid by a few national consolidators that buy up regional plants. The largest is Oldcastle APG (part of Ireland-listed CRH), which markets masonry under the Echelon brand and is the biggest architectural-building-products producer in North America.[5] Cemex and Titan America make block as one product line within integrated cement/aggregate operations.[6][7] Berkshire Hathaway has a small concrete-block presence through Acme Brick's Featherlite operation, which produces gray and colored concrete block, burnished block, concrete brick, and pavers at Texas plants; Berkshire does not separately disclose Featherlite revenue.[19] Large privately held regional players include Basalite (owned by Pacific Coast Building Products, dominant in the West), Angelus Block (Southern California, founding-family-owned), County Materials and Midwest Block & Brick (Midwest), Mutual Materials (Pacific Northwest), and E. Dillon (Mid-Atlantic).[10][20]

3. How big it is

Federal statistics (prefer these over private "market-size" reports, which range wildly from ~$2B to ~$7.5B because they mix in adjacent products):

At roughly $5.8B in shipments across 360 firms, this is a small industry by revenue — average revenue is on the order of $16M per firm, and plants are modestly sized (about 26 workers each on average).[1] The industry-concentration table's Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (a standard concentration measure) is suppressed by the Census Bureau, so we do not report it.[1] Commerce Department analysis of 2017 data found that 93% of firms (401 of 430) were below the 500-employee SBA threshold, accounting for about 62% of industry employment — confirming that this remains a predominantly small-business industry.[17]

Historical context: the industry has not returned to its pre-financial-crisis scale. In 2007, shipments were $6.24 billion across 914 establishments with 23,825 employees; by 2017, shipments had fallen to $4.88 billion across 690 establishments with 16,247 employees.[17] The 2022 figures show recovery but still below the 2007 peak in real terms.

Undercount caveat: because block is a manufactured product sold through plants, Census manufacturing surveys capture it reasonably well — this is not a government-dominated or gig-worker-dominated industry that federal statistics miss. The bigger measurement wrinkle is the reverse: some block output happens inside vertically integrated cement/aggregate/ready-mix companies whose primary NAICS code is elsewhere, and paver/hardscape volume straddles the 327331/327390 line — so the true economic footprint of "concrete masonry" is somewhat larger than the 327331 line alone.[13]

4. The investable universe

There is no listed pure-play. Public exposure is indirect, through diversified building-materials companies where concrete block is a minor line item. Tickers and scale are provided here (per house style) only in this section.

Public companies with concrete-block exposure (block is a small share of each):

(Capstone Holding, Nasdaq: CAPS, is a masonry/stone-veneer distributor, not a block manufacturer, and sits outside this industry.)[16]

Major private and other owners: Oldcastle APG (CRH), Basalite (Pacific Coast Building Products), Angelus Block, County Materials, Midwest Block & Brick, Mutual Materials, Nitterhouse, Ernest Maier, RCP Block & Brick, E. Dillon, Quikrete Best Block, Fizzano Brothers, and hundreds of single- or few-plant independents.[10][20]

Bottom line: buying "the block industry" on the public markets is really buying the broader cement-and-aggregates cycle. Concentrated exposure to block itself is a private-market proposition.

5. How the money works

Owners make money by converting cheap bulk inputs (cement, aggregates, water) into finished units and selling them within a tight freight radius before shipping costs erode the margin. The relevant metrics are the ones common to capacity-utilization, input-cost, and freight-bound manufacturing — not store sales or occupancy.

• The weight-to-value moat. A pallet of block is heavy and low-value, so hauling it more than roughly 150–200 miles can cost more than the block itself. Producers therefore compete only against the handful of plants inside their delivery zone, which supports local pricing power. It also means growth comes from adding plants in new geographies, not from scaling one giant factory.[1][15][17]
• Unit economics. Block is sold per unit or per thousand units. Industry rules of thumb (from trade/startup sources, treat as indicative, not audited) put gross margins around 30–40% and net margins around 12–20% for a well-run plant running 5–20 million units a year.[15] Margin caveat: Census "value added" (about 59% of shipments in 2017) is not profit — it includes labor, depreciation, taxes, and operating surplus. Treating it as a gross or EBITDA margin would be wrong.[17]
• Input costs are the swing factor. Cement is the largest raw material and the main cost variable; aggregates (sand, gravel, lightweight cinders/expanded shale), energy for curing, and labor follow. When cement prices rise, producers pass them through to block prices with a lag — the producer price index for concrete products climbed from about 211 in 2011 to roughly 393 in 2025, and rose 14.7% from December 2022 to December 2025 alone.[9] Cement manufacturing is energy-intensive with significant CO₂ emissions, so carbon policy reaches block producers through their supply chain even when they do not own a kiln.[22]
• Capacity utilization and fixed cost. Block machines are capital-intensive; a plant's profitability hinges on running volume through fixed overhead. In a construction downturn, utilization and margins fall together.
• Product mix matters. Standard gray load-bearing block is the most commodity-like. Colored architectural block, burnished and split-face units, proprietary retaining-wall systems, and pavers can support better price realization, but they add molds, pigments, finishing operations, inventory complexity, and selling expense.
• Spot pricing in tight markets. In supply-constrained or disaster-hit regions, prices spike — Florida can see meaningful post-hurricane block price jumps as rebuild demand collides with local capacity.[12]

6. What drives demand

• Nonresidential construction is the core market: block walls in schools, warehouses/distribution centers, retail, hospitals, correctional facilities, and industrial buildings. Industry forecasters saw nonresidential building spending rising a few percent in 2025–2026 as interest-rate cuts unlocked stalled projects.[11][14]
• Residential construction — regionally. Block is a primary structural material in the Southeast, above all Florida, where hurricane wind codes push builders toward concrete-block homes; Florida uses far more concrete per house than a comparable wood-framed build elsewhere.[12] In much of the country, block is used mainly for foundations and basements. Demand is cyclical and seasonal — higher in warmer-weather months when construction activity peaks.[19]
• Resilient/disaster-resistant building codes (hurricane High-Velocity Hurricane Zones, wildfire, tornado) are a structural tailwind for masonry.[12]
• Infrastructure and outdoor living. Segmental retaining walls, sound walls, and hardscape pavers — often made in the same plants — ride public infrastructure spending and the home-improvement/outdoor-living cycle; U.S./Canadian paver shipments have topped a billion square feet a year recently.[3]
• Interest rates and housing affordability set the overall tempo by governing construction starts.

7. Regulation

• Worker safety — silica. Cutting and handling concrete generates respirable crystalline silica; OSHA's standard sets a permissible exposure limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air (8-hour average) and an action level of 25, requiring dust controls, monitoring, and medical surveillance at block plants. OSHA also identifies amputations, confined spaces, electrical and fall hazards, struck-by and caught-between incidents, and noise as material plant hazards.[8][23]
• Product and building standards. Load-bearing CMU is governed by ASTM C90; concrete brick by ASTM C1634; testing by ASTM C140; masonry design by the TMS 402/602 code, all folded into the International Building Code and International Residential Code that local jurisdictions adopt. These standards create demand as much as they constrain it (hurricane and fire codes that favor masonry).[12][18]
• Environmental. Cement is carbon-intensive, so block carries meaningful embodied carbon; buyers increasingly request Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association released the first U.S. industry-average CMU EPD in 2024, covering seven unit classes based on data from 35 producers.[24] Tightening EPA kiln rules on cement feed into input costs. Producers that also mine aggregates face MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) oversight.
• Concrete Masonry Checkoff. A federal research-and-promotion program became effective December 18, 2022, with manufacturers remitting $0.01 per covered unit to fund research, education, and promotion. The referendum received support from 62% of voting manufacturers (representing 53% of voting machine cavities) — evidence that producers believe fragmented local marketing has been inadequate against competing wall systems.[25]
• Air permitting for plant dust and emissions is handled at the state/local level.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The industry is nationally fragmented but locally concentrated — the defining structural feature. National concentration is only moderate: the top 4 firms hold about 35.5% of revenue, the top 8 about 46.3%, the top 20 about 62.3%, and the top 50 about 76.4%.[1] But because freight economics carve the country into local markets, any given metro is typically served by just a few plants, so effective competition is far more concentrated than the national numbers suggest.

Consolidation is ongoing but gradual. National roll-ups — led by CRH/Oldcastle — acquire strong regional family plants, while broader building-materials M&A reshapes the neighborhood (for example, Titan America's move to acquire Keystone Cement, and Quikrete's 2025 acquisition of Summit Materials, extend integrated players' reach into block-adjacent supply).[16] Barriers to entry are moderate: the technology is simple, but a new entrant needs capital for block machines, reliable cement/aggregate supply, and local contractor relationships.

9. Risks

• Cyclicality. Revenue tracks construction starts; a rate-driven building slump hits volume and plant utilization directly.
• Input-cost squeeze. Cement and energy price spikes compress margins until pass-through catches up. Producers with captive aggregates, dense delivery networks, or parent-company cement procurement have structural advantages.
• Substitution. Block competes with wood and steel framing, tilt-up and precast concrete panels, insulated concrete forms, and metal building systems; where codes allow, faster-to-erect systems can win share. The central constraint is installation labor, not unit price — a block producer can have competitive factory cost and still lose share if skilled-mason availability or construction speed makes the completed wall more expensive.
• Skilled-labor decline. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 74,100 brickmasons and blockmasons in 2024 and projects only 76,400 in 2034 (3% growth), with roughly 20,700 annual openings mainly to replace workers leaving the occupation. BLS specifically notes that increased use of prefabricated panels is likely to limit some on-site mason demand.[26] This is a slow structural headwind for CMU, though it also creates openings for larger-format, dry-stack, and mechanized masonry systems.
• Freight and fuel. The same weight-to-value math that protects local margins makes producers acutely exposed to diesel and trucking costs.
• Regulatory cost creep. Tighter silica, dust, and embodied-carbon requirements raise compliance spend.
• Geographic concentration and weather. Heavy Sun Belt exposure links demand to hurricane cycles and regional housing swings.
• Local and customer concentration. Excess capacity or an aggressive competitor in a single metro can impair pricing even when national construction statistics appear healthy; builder or distributor concentration creates receivables risk.

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public-market routes. Because there is no pure play, investors gain exposure through diversified building-materials equities — CRH (the closest thing to a masonry leader via Oldcastle/Echelon), Cemex, Titan America (the most geographically focused U.S. East Coast/Florida play), and Amrize.[5][6][7][16] Berkshire Hathaway provides highly diluted exposure through Acme/Featherlite.[19] In every case you are buying the broader cement-aggregates-concrete cycle, with block as a minor contributor; judge them on overall building-materials fundamentals, valuation, and the construction cycle rather than on block alone. Note that cement and aggregates companies (Vulcan Materials, Martin Marietta, Eagle Materials) are upstream construction-material exposures, not investments in this NAICS industry unless a specific subsidiary manufactures qualifying block.

Private-market routes. This is where concentrated block exposure actually lives: buying or building regional block plants, backing private-equity platform roll-ups of family producers, or investing upstream/adjacent — in cement and aggregate supply, block-making machinery, or masonry distribution. The local-moat, real-asset character that makes these businesses unglamorous is exactly what makes them attractive to patient private owners. Diligence should be plant-by-plant and market-by-market: utilization, mold fleet, curing bottlenecks, cement contracts, trucking radius, customer concentration, local wall-system share, mason availability, environmental permits, maintenance backlog, and replacement capital matter more than a national "market growth" forecast.

Near-term drivers (forward-looking). The setup looks moderately constructive rather than boom-like. Supportive factors that could lift volumes include interest-rate cuts unlocking delayed projects, a nonresidential recovery, continued Sun Belt/Florida housing and rebuild demand, resilient-construction codes, warehouse/industrial building, and steady hardscape/outdoor-living spending.[11][12][14] Working against those are a long-run drift toward alternative wall systems, the shrinking mason workforce, and sensitivity to any renewed jump in cement, energy, or financing costs. Net, this is best viewed as a steady, GDP-and-construction-linked compounder with strong local moats — not a growth story — where the private-market path offers the purest and most controllable exposure.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census — Industry Concentration (NAICS 327331) and County Business Patterns, 2023. Receipts, firm/establishment counts, employment, payroll, and concentration ratios. https://data.census.gov/
2. U.S. Small Business Administration. Table of Small Business Size Standards (NAICS 327331 = 500 employees), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
3. Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association (CMHA). 2024 Hardscape Production Report and association overview, 2024. https://www.cmha.org/
4. Wikipedia / Wienerberger. General Shale (Wienerberger); U.S. clay-brick ownership, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Shale
5. Oldcastle APG (a CRH Company) / CRH plc. Company overview, Echelon Masonry brand, and CRH 2024 Annual Report ($35.6B revenue; largest architectural-building-products producer in North America), 2024–2025. https://www.oldcastleapg.com/; https://www.crh.com/
6. Cemex USA. Concrete block product line, 2025. https://www.cemexusa.com/products/urbanization-solutions/concrete-block
7. Titan America SA. IPO press release and 2025 results (NYSE: TTAM; $1.66B 2025 revenue; East Coast integrated producer), 2025. https://ir.titanamerica.com/press-releases/detail/74/titan-america-announces-closing-of-initial-public-offering
8. U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Respirable Crystalline Silica — Construction (29 CFR 1926.1153), PEL 50 µg/m³ / action level 25 µg/m³. https://www.osha.gov/silica-crystalline
9. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Producer Price Index — Concrete Block and Brick Manufacturing / Concrete Products, 2011–2025. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU327331327331
10. Basalite Concrete Products / Pacific Coast Building Products; regional producer profiles, 2025. https://basalite.com/about-us/
11. Fortune Business Insights. Concrete Blocks and Bricks Market (clay vs. concrete share; North American outlook), 2025. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/concrete-blocks-and-bricks-market-103784
12. Industry/Florida construction sources. Hurricane wind codes and concrete-block home construction; post-storm pricing, 2025–2026. https://www.tri-townconstruction.com/blog/cost-build-block-house-florida/
13. U.S. Census Bureau / NAICS. NAICS 327331 definition and boundaries (clay brick 327121, ready-mix 327320, other concrete 327390), 2022. https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=327331
14. American Institute of Architects (AIA), via industry reporting. Consensus Construction Forecast — nonresidential spending 2025–2026. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/concrete-blocks-and-bricks-market-103784
15. Businessplan-templates / Financial Models Lab. Concrete block manufacturing unit economics and KPIs (indicative margin and freight-cost estimates), 2025. https://businessplan-templates.com/blogs/owners-make/concrete-block-manufacturing
16. Concrete Products / SEC filings. Industry consolidation: Titan America–Keystone Cement, Holcim/Amrize spinoff, Quikrete–Summit Materials; Capstone Holding (distributor), 2024–2026. https://concreteproducts.com/
17. U.S. Department of Commerce. Concrete Masonry Products Final Rule and Industry Size Analysis (2017/2007 Census data, firm/establishment counts, small-business share), 2021. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-09-15/pdf/2021-18352.pdf
18. Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association (CMHA). CMU Manufacturing FAQ and TEK 18-02C Testing Guide (ASTM C140 sampling and testing), 2024. https://www.cmha.org/resource/cmu-faq-014/
19. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Form 10-K (Acme Brick ownership); Acme Brick Company. Featherlite concrete products description, 2025–2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1067983&type=10-K
20. Angelus Block Company. Company history (founding-family ownership), 2025. https://www.angelusblock.com/about-angelus-block/
21. CRH plc. Form 10-K 2025 (Americas Building Solutions segment: $7.12B revenue, 20.7% adjusted EBITDA margin), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/849395/000162828026009043/crh-20251231.htm
22. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Portland Cement Manufacturing NESHAP and Subpart H GHG Reporting (cement emissions), 2025. https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/portland-cement-manufacturing-industry-national-emission-standards
23. U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Concrete Products — Controlling Hazards (amputations, confined spaces, struck-by, noise), 2025. https://www.osha.gov/concrete-products/controlling-hazards
24. Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association (CMHA). First U.S. Industry-Average CMU Environmental Product Declaration, 2024. https://www.cmha.org/news-and-insights/cmha-releases-first-us-industry-average-environmental-product-declaration-for-concrete-masonry-units/
25. U.S. Department of Commerce. Concrete Masonry Checkoff Program (effective Dec. 18, 2022; $0.01/unit assessment; 62% manufacturer support), 2022–2023. https://www.commerce.gov/bureaus-and-offices/ousea/concrete-masonry-checkoff
26. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook — Brickmasons, Blockmasons, and Stonemasons (74,100 employed 2024; 76,400 projected 2034; 20,700 annual openings), 2025. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/brickmasons-blockmasons-and-stonemasons.htm