The parent company of Ontario Knives, Servotronics, Inc., has sold the company, its inventory, intellectual property, and good will to Marion, Virginia based Blue Ridge Knives. The purchase price for Ontario Knives was a reported $2.1 million. If you go to the OKC website, they say the company is in transition and not taking any orders. The closing of the sale was announced on August 3rd.
Ontario Knives or OKC makes bayonets and strap cutters for the military, the Old Hickory line of cooking knives, originally made all the RAT knives, many types of survival knives, machetes, and a full line of other tactical and sporting cutlery. OKC was founded in 1889 in Ontario County, New York and moved to Franklinville in 1902. Franklinville, population 1,650 +/-, is located midway between Buffalo and Olean.
While many of their knives were made in Franklinville, other like my RAT Model 1 folder shown below were made in Taiwan.
According to the Buffalo News, the plant in Franklinville employs 35. While some will be offered jobs with Servotronics, most will be laid off with severance packages. Servotronics’ CEO William Farrell’s rationale for selling OKC was financial.
Servotronics’ consumer products group, which consists of Ontario Knife’s operations, generated $8.6 million in sales last year — a 3% drop from 2021. By comparison, Servotronics’ advanced technology group generated $35 million in sales, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the first quarter of this year, the consumer products group reported an operating loss of $720,000.The cutlery business had operating losses of $21,000 last year and $1.6 million in 2021.
The Olean Times Herald is reporting that a group is seeking to buy some of the equipment and potentially the plant.
Corey Wiktor, executive director of the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency, said:
Servotronics said the equipment in the Ontario Knife plant will be auctioned off in September.
Wiktor said efforts are underway to help Dave Fenske, a Franklinville resident with decades of experience in the cutlery field, put together a bid for the knife plant that could be partially leased to Servotronics to maintain their presence there.
Fenske is also interested in bidding on some of the Ontario Knife equipment in hopes of opening a small cutlery there, Wiktor said.
It should be noted that Blue Ridge Knives is a wholesaler and distributor. They are not a manufacturer of knives.
Blue Ridge Knives CEO Phil Martin said about the acquisition:
“We are excited to add the longstanding heritage and brands of Ontario Knife Company to the BRK portfolio. The combination of OKC and our extensive dealer network provides considerable opportunities to grow our business and enhance our position in the tactical, outdoor and hunting markets.”
Given that Blue Ridge Knives is a wholesaler and not a manufacturer, this leads to some interesting questions.
First, given that the bayonets, machetes, and strap cutters purchased by the Department of Defense are required to be US made, will Blue Ridge be getting into the manufacturing side of the business?
Second, if Blue Ridge will not be going into manufacturing, to whom will they subcontract the products that must be US made?
Third, beyond the military cutlery and tools, which of the current US made products such as the Old Hickory kitchen knives will remain as US made?
Fourth, what percentage of their entire line of cutlery is currently being made overseas such as the RAT Model 1 made in Taiwan?
I spoke with my friend Tim of Old Grouch Military Surplus this afternoon. He noted that Blue Ridge Knives had recently moved into a much larger facility in Marion that had been a manufacturing plant at one time. Perhaps they will be getting into the manufacturing side of things though it appears it would be with new equipment as the tooling was not included in the sale. He also noted that Blue Ridge Knives had been buying the seconds of Ontario and Old Hickory Knives for some time. Thus, there was a strong pre-existing relationship between OKC and Blue Ridge.
One last note – I always enjoyed speaking with the booth reps from OKC while at the SHOT Show. They were uniformly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. I wish them the best in whatever the future holds for them.
UPDATED: I had reached out to Blue Ridge Knives with questions about whether they intended to begin manufacturing given that some of the Ontario products (bayonets, etc) must be produced in the United States.
After thanking me for reaching out to them, they wrote:
We only purchased OKC last week and are still working on the details. We should know more in the upcoming weeks.
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