Craft Focus - Page number 32 - June/July 2021 (Issue 85)

32 Cutting edge Brian Price, national accounts manager at OLFA UK talks to Craft Focus about their renowned cutting tools, proudly made in Japan Tell us a little bit about the history behind Olfa. Who started the company and when? Mr Yoshio Okada, the founder of Olfa Corporation, invented the world’s first snap-off blade cutter in 1956 as a solution to other knives constantly losing their edge and becoming dull. He came up with the idea of a snap blade from breaking off segments of a chocolate bar and analysing sharp edges of broken glass. He realised that if a single segmented blade could be made to snap at given points, you’d always have a sharp edge to hand. Where are you now located? We currently distribute Olfa in the UK and Ireland from Mill Hill, north west London, but we will shortly move to a purpose- built automated distribution centre in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. Where does the name Olfa come from? The name Olfa comes from two Japanese words, which, when translated, mean ‘to break a blade’. The Olfa parallelogram logo is based on the shape of a snap-off blade. Most Olfa tools are ‘egg yolk yellow’, just like the logo, making them easy to identify in a toolbox or amongst desktop clutter. Where in the world do your products get made? All Olfa products are 100 per cent designed, developed and manufactured in Japan. How has the company evolved over the years? Following the invention of the snap-off cutter, Olfa invented the world’s first rotary cutter in 1979, which revolutionised the way people cut fabric. In the last 10 years, the product development team at Olfa have brought dozens of original and highly functional tools to market. However, a majority were not readily available to crafters in the UK and Ireland until very recently. All the while, much of Olfa’s focus has been on creating blades of unrivalled precision and longevity. What company values do you hold? To promote products of a high calibre that encourage re-use over disposal. To optimise logistics and reduce our carbon footprint. To supply tools that help to improve the general quality of craft whilst also making