Τα πρώτα Ιαπωνικά μαχαίρια Global σχεδιάστηκαν το 1985 από τον Komin Yamada, στόχος του οποίου ήταν να αναπτύξει μια σειρά από μαχαίρια που θα ήταν πραγματικά νέα και επαναστατικά, αξιοποιώντας τα καλύτερα διαθέσιμα υλικά και τις πιο σύγχρονες ιδέες σχεδίασης. Τα μαχαίρια Global συνδυάζουν την παραδοσιακή ιαπωνική δεξιοτεχνία με τη σύγχρονη εργονομία για να παράγουν την τέλεια ισορροπία.
In 1985, Mino Tsuchida, the founder of Master Cutlery Corporation who was affectionately called as Mr. GLOBAL later, has introduced GLOBAL knives to the world for the very first time at the trade show Ambiente in Frankfurt. Nobody knew GLOBAL knives even in Japan at that time, as there were only 500 pcs of GLOBAL knives produced per month. The booth, which had only 3.3 square meters, was prepared by Chiba prefecture trade cooperative association, and 6 small companies shared such tiny space to display their products.
Not only during the trade shows, but he also performed sharpening demonstration to promote GLOBAL knives by visiting individual retail stores in many different countries after the show. Little by little, just like he sharpened one piece of knife very carefully, he made sharpening demonstration sale at each store.
Two Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Denmark) showed interest first. President of Rosendahl, who became a distributor in Denmark afterwards, told him it is important to establish brand name first, but never sell at cheap price no matter how difficult the situation might be at the beginning stage.
After several years, GLOBAL knives gradually expanded to the other European countries such as Germany, Netherlands, UK, and eventually went across the continents to North America and Australia. He kept doing the same thing every where every year at trade shows; Ambiente in February, Chicago show in March, Melbourne fair in August, and Good Food Show in November in Birmingham, UK. Before and/or after each trade show, he visited retail stores and performed sharpening demonstration sale of GLOBAL knives again and again.
After a while, he started to receive requests from retail stores for sharpening demonstration through distributors regardless of trade shows' timing, and sales of GLOBAL knives rapidly went up simultaneously.
Here is Mino's memo showing the quantity of GLOBAL knives sold each year.
With this founder's passionate and perseverant efforts, the collection of GLOBAL knives has expanded to over 150 items from the original 12 items by the requests of celebrity chefs and major retailers all over the world.
Our company supported Culinary Olympic held every 4 years. We had booth at the venue, and supported chefs teams representing their countries by providing them with GLOBAL knives.
We have also been supporting culinary school in each country to raise up chefs in next generation for over 20 years. The best example of investment is free supply of GLOBAL knives to Roux Scholarship, culinary school with long history operated by owner/chef of 2 stars Michelin restaurant Le Gavroche in London, Michel Roux Jr, and his cousin (owner/chef of 3 stars Michelin restaurant Waterside Inn).
As we have been treating overseas distributors like family, we call them GLOBAL Family. There are several GLOBAL families which have been handed over to the second or third generation already, such as Sweden, Denmark, Austria, UK and Australia.