Olfa is a Japanese manufacturer of utility knives, founded in 1956. The name is derived from the Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 words oru (折る, bend and break) and ha (刃, blade).

Snap-off blade

Founder Yoshio Okada and his younger brother Saburo worked for printing companies where they cut paper with razor blades, but the blades quickly became unusable as their edges wore out. The brothers invented blades with scored lines which could be snapped to reveal sharp unused sections of blade. This idea came to them when they recalled how a chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 bar given to them by GHQ (Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers

Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers

Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan following World War II...

) soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

 in childhood had also broken off in sections.

These snap-off blades and their associated handles are now made by many manufacturers in two standard sizes (9 and 18mm).

Other products

Their products include heavy-duty and specialty cutting tools for the building industry, safety tools for industrial applications, rotary cutter

Rotary cutter

A rotary cutter is a tool generally used by quilters to cut fabric. It consists of a handle with a circular blade that rotates, thus the tool's name. Rotary blades can be found in different sizes: usually smaller blades are used to cut around corners, while larger blades are used to cut to straight...

s, self-healing mats, art knives and rulers for the crafting industry.

The company's products are frequently recommended for use in crafts such as book repair, calligraphy, quilt making, modelling, sewing, picture framing and appliqué.