Yasugi steel price increase 250%

Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
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HumbleHomeCook said:
You can't look at this from the consumer side as a per knife cost increase. You have to look at from the knife manufacturers perspective and that includes small-shop smiths. As @bsfsu pointed out, they have to buy in some bulk quantity and that can mean a massive capitol expense. There's a good possibility some cannot accept it and will close. This decreases overall demand which is often the first goal of the initial price increase. From there it is often just a rinse and repeat cycle until the demand has shrunk sufficiently for the original manufacturer of the source material can justify dropping it altogether and switching to other lines.
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Maybe the knifemakers will be smart enough to band together and jointly purchase bulk quantities? Surely they are more than smart enough to figure it out.
 
I watched an interview once with a business guy who wanted to start making shoes in the US. He had a plan for dealing with the higher labor rates and production costs that would still allow for a commercially viable product. But he couldn't get it started and it never happened.

Why? The eye rivets and laces. He couldn't get them. All the volume was already allocated and his demand was so small, no manufacturer would entertain is request. As he worked to source the materials, the backers left, momentum slowed and the project died.

Now, in this scenario, clearly there's already a source being supplied I'm just trying to highlight that volume can be a big factor in manufacturing.
 
They do buy from local steel wholesalers, usually up to a ton in bar stock every few years, at least that’s what it’s like in Sakai. That’s also why steels getting discontinued isn’t an issue immediately.

There’s also another thing going on. Hitachi is in trouble and they’ve been selling off a lot of their legacy subsidiaries.
Hitachi metal was sold and is now called Proterial. The owner is an American fund the Japanese often refer to as a vulture. Good old Bain Capital.

https://en.baincapital.co.jp/portfolio/proterial
The price increases are part of the takeover. There’s a chance they’ll sell it off once the books have been polished a bit in a few years. All of this doesn’t fix the issue of too little demand, though. In the long run takefu specialty steel will probably take over.
 
Lurkernomore said:
They do buy from local steel wholesalers, usually up to a ton in bar stock every few years, at least that’s what it’s like in Sakai. That’s also why steels getting discontinued isn’t an issue immediately.

There’s also another thing going on. Hitachi is in trouble and they’ve been selling off a lot of their legacy subsidiaries.
Hitachi metal was sold and is now called Proterial. The owner is an American fund the Japanese often refer to as a vulture. Good old Bain Capital.

https://en.baincapital.co.jp/portfolio/proterial
The price increases are part of the takeover. There’s a chance they’ll sell it off once the books have been polished a bit in a few years. All of this doesn’t fix the issue of too little demand, though. In the long run takefu specialty steel will probably take over.
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Great insight. Thank you.

Bain... Eeesshhh...

Do you think this is just a ripple and things will settle out soon enough?
 
Lurkernomore said:
The whole Japanese knife industry is way too small to make a steel mill like the yasugi one commercially viable and it’s been that way for years if not decades. A lot of the different steel grades will be phased out and the remaining ones will be subject to the 250 percent price increase.
As was correctly pointed out the price of the raw materials isn’t that much of an issue, it’s the exclusive use of multipliers to set retail prices that’s prevalent in the industry. It’s all manageable if they choose to add the steel cost after the multipliers have been applied. Profit margins would decrease slightly but the actual sums would remain stable.

Anyway, the whole shared labor system is absolutely doomed and everybody in the industry knows and can see it all unraveling in real time. The whole knife thing was never scaleable to begin with, the productivity is just not there.
Also lol at manaka. There’s a reason all those makers are unknown on the domestic market.
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TBH some of Manaka’s knives are fine, I liked his blue 1, but this is just ridiculous, tho to be fair this is also his old work
 
I think you will see a large price increase by mid-year. Not only are the materials more expensive, but blacksmiths are charging more.

There were large price increases in 2022-2023, but those were offset by the very strong US dollar, which is linked to the Fed rates. As the Feds lower interest rates, the dollar will drop. Once the dollar settles back, I expect shops will need to increase prices accordingly. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised in a 50-70% increase in a year or 2.

IMG_8336.jpeg
 
JoBone said:
I think you will see a large price increase by mid-year. Not only are the materials more expensive, but blacksmiths are charging more.

There were large price increases in 2022-2023, but those were offset by the very strong US dollar, which is linked to the Fed rates. As the Feds lower interest rates, the dollar will drop. Once the dollar settles back, I expect shops will need to increase prices accordingly. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised in a 50-70% increase in a year or 2.

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In late 2022 I predicted a lot of price hikes in our hobby for 2023. We saw some but as you point out, a lot of it was held at bay. But it's coming. I can't see a way it won't.

Manufacturing costs skyrocketed starting in 2021 and all through 2022 with some stabilizing but no easing in 2023. Businesses can only absorb just so much margin loss before those costs get passed on. And since this was so drastic and so widespread including gas prices, everyone was feeling it and everyone started passing on those costs. As inventories needed to be replenished and contracts renegotiated, price increases slammed down hard.

No doubt there are degrees of impact depending on the model and product but I think very few makers of products aren't feeling the pressure.
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
In late 2022 I predicted a lot of price hikes in our hobby for 2023. We saw some but as you point out, a lot of it was held at bay. But it's coming. I can't see a way it won't.

Manufacturing costs skyrocketed starting in 2021 and all through 2022 with some stabilizing but no easing in 2023. Businesses can only absorb just so much margin loss before those costs get passed on. And since this was so drastic and so widespread including gas prices, everyone was feeling it and everyone started passing on those costs. As inventories needed to be replenished and contracts renegotiated, price increases slammed down hard.

No doubt there are degrees of impact depending on the model and product but I think very few makers of products aren't feeling the pressure.
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TF were ahead of the curve. Contrary to most other JKnife makers, they hiked their prices 20% 5 years ago. Glad I got my fill before that materialised.
 
WildBoar said:
Maybe the knifemakers will be smart enough to band together and jointly purchase bulk quantities? Surely they are more than smart enough to figure it out.
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That is how they buy steel, the wholesalers union buys steel and distributes to blacksmiths.


Junichi Ide, Yosimitu Kajiya, Nagasaki.

The steel is made from Yasugi steel, which is made by a big company called 'Hitachi Metals', but the president of that company has changed and they were initially reluctant to produce steel for blacksmiths. The wholesalers' union, which distributes steel to blacksmiths, negotiated with the company to continue production, but they offered an unprecedented price increase... and the wholesalers' union had no choice but to accept it.
My efforts alone have made it impossible to keep the prices down. I'm really sorry🙏.
 
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