Chinese Threat To Japanese and German Knives

today I want to talk about a topic that kinda has been kind of brewing in the air for quite some time and the reason I wanna make this video here is because I haven't had time to actually shoot any reviews lately because of all the changes in my home and kids being sick me being sick and so these q and A's are a lot easier for me to do but it's kind of a sentiment that's kind of been going around a knife community for some time and to be transparent I'm not the spokesperson for any manufacturer I don't represent or work for any manufacturer or any knife brands out there and so I just want to make that very clear and but doing what I do yeah I've got a very small but growing YouTube channel I get contacted from brands from around the world brand managers marketing managers large e-commerce sites knife manufacturers what some manufacturers on a daily basis so when that happens they typically will send me a couple email who may do some exchanges and then we'll eventually hop on a call at some point now keep in mind I'm talking to people in Germany Japan China South America Canada and even Australia and from these conversations I'm able to piece together a very broad understanding of the knife market in general but there was one sentiment that is floating around that is kind of like somewhat agreed upon from all these different people is that Chinese knives or Chinese cutlery are overtaking the market and so that's what this video is all about it's kind of my take on this topic and whether or not I agree with these people you guys would certainly hear that now it is obvious I'm very biased for Japanese knives and West stones I reviewed 99% of my Whetstone's are made in Japan and the knives all on the wall you guys see back there or everything there is Japanese I think with the exception of no everything there everything behind me is Japanese and you've got your handmade knives from the akazawa your Massimo nose your yak souls so I've got everything from your Hameed knives to sushi knives to factory made knives to artisan made knives back there and so obviously I love Japanese knives so the very first pro of a Japanese knife is the tradition when you go to Japan it is all about sharp knives the you know they have entire cities dedicated to making knives sucky Sakai Tosa so all these regions in Japan that employ 50 thousand 80,000 I believe the city of sucky has if I remember this correctly as much as eighty thousand people in the city of sucky that actually work for a knife manufacturer so in Japan cutlery is a very big business and so the tradition of knife making in Japan is unsurpassed there is no denying that when it comes to tradition Japanese I've got it down the second thing is quality now you know the Japanese are perfectionist everything from their food to their cutlery to their clothes they are perfectionist I've had the great privilege to have been invited to Japan to travel through and meet some of the best knife makers in all of Japan I am going back to Japan by the way so I'm going to Osaka this time and I'll be spending time in Kyoto Sakai and KO Bay to meet some knife makers out there so I'll keep you guys posted when the time comes when I've traveled through these factories and these facilities and I'm watching either an artisan make a knife we're you know one person will make three or four knives in a single day to a factory where they will put out as many as five hundred to a thousand knives in a single day when you're in these factories you can see nothing but pride in what they're doing and that to me is one of the most amazing things when I was there and these people are just in love with what they do and that to me is something that you cannot buy you can pay for that yeah passion let's just use the word passion because I don't think there's any other word to describe it or that work ethic you know in Japanese knives I think that is to me that is already putting Japanese knives a much different ear than some of the other knives that we're talking about and another thing that really stood out to me is that Japanese knife manufacturers tend to perfect a certain steel or a very specific number of steels that they want to make their knives with you will never see any brain I can almost guarantee you you will never see any Japanese brand that makes our knives in Japan use more than like three steals maybe four if they're really big so the exhale uses vg10 sg2 and I think that's it and then you have Miyabi which uses s G to some vg-10 and a CDP on one line of knives and then you've got shewn which pretty much exclusively uses vg-10 at this point or vici Max and they may have a couple of blue steels out there so Matsumoto has a VG line they've got a white number-two line and they've got you know a couple of horn Yaquis which is like really high-end stuff and then you have global which is one of the largest manufacturers in all of Japan and they are a they use almost exclusively just one or two Steel's I think they use just a chromoly eighteen is that their main brand or the main line of Steel that they used then obviously your artisan knife makers will just use one or two steals at a time and that's really much it so going back to the point because Japanese manufacturers really perfect how to temper and work with one or two steals so just so you guys understand I'm not saying that every single knife that comes out of Japan is the utmost best quality you can buy so please understand that so breaking down a German knife manufacturer is very simple automation one steel and standardized everything so if you look at a brand like Gustav for example all of their knives I mean I do mean every single one of their knives are being sold now on the retail market regardless of where you buy from what retailer or what line of knives you're buying from is using the same steel it is a steel that they have perfected it's still that they fully understand it's a steel that they can get very cheaply and at a very large quantity so for a brently would stuff it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to explore and to retool you know their machinery just to accommodate another line of knife it's either the Epicure or the epicurean line that's pretty much the only line of knives that has a different chef knife shape everything else is exactly the same so the handles you find icon they change the materials around for a couple of their different lines and then you have the handles the from the Epicure line and then the classic line so if they have three handles three handle shapes with different materials and that's it that makes it very easy to manufacture very easy to source and they know exactly what they can do they have everything down to a science they basically know exactly how many grams of steel they need for a single knife customers who buy Gustav knives know exactly what they're getting whether they're buy a knife that was made today or ten years ago or maybe in ten years later they'll know that it's gonna be pretty much the same knife so that's great I really quick comment that somebody talked about one day they said the boost off charges so much money for the knives because they pay everyone a fair wage that works for them go and do a youtube search on food soft knife making factory you'll see that 99% of their knife making process is automation I think the only exception is that packaging of the knives and the lowering of materials may be done by a person if you go to a chap nice facility like yak cell miyabi or global or soon you'll see a hundred to two hundred people making knives and so to me that makes a bigger statement and a bigger impact on the local economy then you know a dozen workers just pressing buttons for machines to do their own thing but again that's for a very different video I'm not knocking boost off for doing that I think from a manufacturing standpoint they're doing exactly what they should be doing making its many knives as possible and you know with as low overhead as with as low and overhead as possible when it comes to human employment so you know I fully understand that you know German knives to me are again they're very predictable you know exactly what you're getting but they tend to be very boring they don't innovate a whole lot they certainly don't innovate in terms of overall shape and they certainly don't innovate when it comes to steels so let's talk about Chinese knives for a second they are a very interesting bunch so and obviously this is not a video to knock on Chinese knives please understand that I have a lot of respect for entrepreneurs out there who are making their own brand of knives and I look at and I don't look at Chinese knife and just as this machine right of just a money-making machine that's trying to suck up market share from the Japanese and German knives they're just people just like you and I and there are people trying to earn a living and they have found a way to make knives very affordable whether or not they pay their employees fair wages that's something I cannot speak about because I'm not there I don't know that part of the industry but let's talk about the things that make Chinese knives very aggressive and very appealing first off Chinese knife manufacturers are very adaptive they are constantly making adjustments to their tooling to their pricing to their production purchasing to their materials what you're saying they were always changing and they're always very fluid when it comes to meeting the demands of the market now in case you guys are not aware Chinese made knives have been on the market for decades do not be fooled German manufacturers certainly use Chinese knives a lot brands like boost off is willing and quizzing art and any brand you guys find in the US retailer or in the Western retailer have entire line of knives made by Chinese manufacturers that are rebranded as willing and boost off and quiz dinar and so really in the last five years you've seen a massive influx and proliferation of Chinese made knives that are not being sold under the new German brands and so what they've done is open up their doors to entrepreneurs from Canada u.s. Brazil Australia wherever you name it and so they do what they do best make lots and lots of knives and they let the entrepreneurs from these countries do their own marketing and do their own you know branding efforts and they just simply produce as many knives as possible and so Chinese that manufacturers are extremely fast and adaptive they just make as many knots as possible and they are simply changing what they need to based on their customers needs and this third thing is probably the most I would say incredible way that Chinese knives are being made they have no limit on production now if you can visit a site but Alibaba you might visit a knife manufacturer site they may say a limit of like thirty thousand knives a month or 50 thousand knives a month or a hundred thousand a month when a Chinese manufacturer says my capacity our capacity is a hundred thousand knives that's just saying right now that's what we can produce but if you came to us and said we want to order two hundred thousand knives they will find a way to make two hundred thousand knives and sell it to you a Japanese manufacturer on the other hand may have a capacity of ten thousand knives a month or maybe fifty thousand times a month but when you go to them and say I want to order a hundred thousand knives they freeze they lock up they say our capacity is fifty thousand knives we can't go beyond that as a matter of fact if the capacity is fifty thousand knives and you ordered fifty thousand knives you're probably gonna get thirty thousand knives or maybe forty thousand knives if you're lucky on time now there are many reasons why Chinese companies are able to expand very quickly labor is cheap Japanese labor is expensive and they want their laborers to be professionist and also to be experts in what they do so when a Japanese company wants to hire a craftsman it's not so much that pay that's a problem it's the ability to find the right person for the job and on the Chinese manufacturing front they basically will just train you on the job and that's all and because of that one very specific and very crucial you know differences in labor ability you'll find that Japanese knives for the same price will be a much higher quality than your Chinese knives and I'm not saying that that's true across every single knife but I'm saying if you took ten Japanese knives from ten different manufacturers and ten Chinese knives from ten different Chinese manufacturers I would say that nine out of ten knives on the Japanese side will be better built and better made than the Chinese knives again that's not a fact it's just based on what I've seen here and what I've been doing for the last few years on my channel this is not publicized anywhere but I've spoken to the president and the chairman of the folks over at Taco foo and the st2 steel that we have today so the very famous steel that's he treat 263 to even a 64 on some cases buy used by Miyabi Asians and yaks all the big the big three this version the current version as she - still it's about 40 years old okay so get that for a second I'm quoting the current president of tack few steel company right now he says that I hope in my lifetime that I will be able to release my version of my super steel this is no joke over a sit-down meal the president and I had a chance to sit down and talk and I'm asking him about different steals that he's making about the current state of each ten su2 and you know so he gave me the information on beach 10s T 2 and V G max by the way something you guys Cure's about me G Max and vg-10 let me know in the comments I will do a video for that because that's a very interesting topic he literally said I have steel that I've been developing and I hope to release it within my lifetime as being president of the Tucker foo steel company and he is in his 40s so he is hoping that by the time he's 60 or B time or before he retires that his own steel would be released that to me is shocking obviously shocking but like when I heard that it was amazing to hear because here I am thinking that these steel companies can pop out steel you know every couple of years they can kind of just revise a couple things and add a couple of different compounds and different elements and just make a whole new steel but for them I still have to be perfect so that's part of why I find Japanese knife making and Japanese knife making culture so fascinating because they are so they are such professionist that they will not risk their reputation for a quick buck so I think there are four classes of knife bars out there and here's what I think they are in my again this is just my personal opinion if you feel differently about it that's fine but I think you have your low end knife buyers escape so I'm not saying that they're poor these people just simply people who can't afford or don't want to afford knives are more than let's say 30 or 40 dollars working chefs that just want to have a knife that works or people who just don't care to have very expensive knives that's fine that's just the market that they're in so your low-end knife buyers will almost always buy your Chinese made knives just because of the cost you have your mid to your buyers so you have your knives in the $60 range up to let's say 150 and these people are always researching knives these are people who are what I would call knife enthusiasts and people who are willing to spend more money on a knife then you have you $150 and above knife buyers so these are high and knives anything over 150 is very high-end some people consider anything over 70 is high-end I consider anything over 150 and these people know exactly what they want to buy they've researched everything there is to research they sharpen their knives your high-end knife buyers over 150 I think unless they've been fooled too by a Chinese knife I think that they'll stick with the Germans and the Japanese knives they're not going to be the ones who are going to be fooled by fancy marketing they're not gonna be the ones who are fooled by you know a YouTube celebrity saying that you should buy this Chinese made knife they know exactly what they want and then your fourth and final knife buyer are your custom knife buyers these buyers will spend whatever it takes to get the knife they want so people will pay you know thirty thousand dollars for Kramer because it's a collector's knife or they will pay two thousand dollars for a sushi knife that they may never use to hang on their kitchen wall and that's fine I mean these people know exactly what they want they will never buy a Chinese made knife at least I don't think so so a combination of different things have allowed Chinese knives to really proliferate and you know marketing strategies aside and pricing strategies aside they're still making knives they're making knives to meet the demands of the lower end buyers and that's where I think they've really got their success because when you've bought a $30 knife from a brand that you've liked it you may buy their $70 knife or even their eight-year-old a knife or $100 knife so back to the original question is do I think Chinese knives are a threat to Japanese knives after hire to the level I don't think so I don't think I don't think people who are willing to spend $200 on a Japanese knife would actually even consider a Chinese knife now there are Chinese knives being made right now claiming that they're being made with tamahagane a steel or talked about Tiger hominy or stuff that the samurai swords are made of and they're being sold as for as much as $1000 and I don't really know if they're selling at all but I hope they have not sold any and I hope that anyone who's willing to buy $1,000 your Naga bar is smart enough to buy a Japanese made in Aqaba I don't think Chinese made knives will really have a big chance at you know taking market share away from the higher in tears they may take a few buyers here and there but as a percentage as a market share I don't think that's possible at this point at the lower end I think they've already won there's I don't think there's any way for the Japanese or German neck market to actually dominate that lower tier market I just don't think that's possum at this point at the mid-tier level I think the German knives are definitely the strongest and then followed by a the Japanese I think the Chinese knife brands are actually eating into that NIT through that mid to your market I think that's where the biggest thought is I think from the consumer standpoint it's a good thing the Chinese are actually moving in and forcing the Japanese and the Germans to change up a little bit and to kind of wake up and do things differently German manufacturers cannot keep making their knives from the same steel over and over in the Japanese manufacturers need to make more knives at a slightly lower cost the problem is not competition for in Chinese the problem is the complacency of the Japanese and German knife manufacturers that's my opinion okay I'm sure I can be wrong and I'm sure there's many opinions out there that think differently and that's fine so let me hear from you what is a low tier mitts you're a high tier knife what is that price point you guys think knives it should sit in and also what kind of Japanese and German manufacturers do differently to keep up with the demands of the market let me know your opinions and also let me know why you guys buy your knives do you guys buy knives just because it's functional and its cost effective or do you guys buy knives because of craftsmanship and quality or do you guys buy knives because of brand I certainly want to hear from you and this would definitely help me get a better understanding of my viewers as well if you guys like this format i've meat going very deep into a topic and spending you know a good 10-15 minutes exploring a very specific topic let me know in the comments and i will do more videos like this instead of just doing like a Q&A where i answer ten questions or whatever like that but i really like these videos where we sit down and talk very specifically it really allows me to share what I know and what I have learned over the years of working with different manufacturers and different brands and I think that's value information for you guys as well well thank you guys for being here we'll catch you in the next video

Channel: Burrfection

Views: 362,127

Keywords: biggest threat to japanese knives, biggest threat to german knives, biggest threat to japanese and german knives, chinese treatening japanese knives, chinese threatening german knives, japanese vs german knives, chinese vs japanese knives, chinese vs german knives, who makes the best kitchen knives, who makes the best chef knives

Id: LzQH7AHwu5Q

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2019