The Kitchen Knife That's Taking Kickstarter by Storm
The Californer/10044693

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- Kickstarter is famous for serving as a platform for the wildly innovative (the first ever iteration of a true smart watch) to the truly befuddling ($50,000 pledged for a potato salad?)—but rarely are there projects that promise a better version of the wares we use daily. Enter Thrive Knives, an LA-based knife-maker that aims to upgrade the lives of home cooks everywhere with a kitchen knife set that will fit the needs—and budget—of professional chefs and regular folks alike. Thrive Knives launched on Kickstarter at 7:00pm on September 9^th with a kitchen knife set that rivals the aesthetic and quality of premium Japanese blades, but at a fraction of the cost. The immediate response was huge—the campaign raised over $9,000 overnight.

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Aside from the price to quality payoff, what sets Thrive Knives apart from other knife makers is the company's ethos. Thrive Knives is motivated by a simple belief: bad design and low quality ultimately create waste, while good quality and beautiful design empower consumers to adopt a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle, one small choice at a time.

"As a global community, we can no longer afford to throw away things we use every day," says Thrive Knives founder Shu Lambert, "but most of us can't afford to stock up on the high-quality versions of basic home necessities." Investing in cheap, mass-produced knives is usually a double-edged loss—not only are you contributing to landfill waste when you throw that knife in the trash, but you're also buying into an unhealthy mass-manufacturing cycle.

Thrive Knives (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thrive5/thrive-knives-thrive-5-essential-knife-collection) is a small adjustment to the kitchen knife game—but with a big pay-off. The most obvious advantage to a higher-quality set is its longevity: these knives are forged from Japanese VG10 steel with 33 layers of damascus cladding protecting their high-carbon core, and they're cryogenically treated to a 59-61 Rockwell hardness. In English? They're sharp knives that cut the way you want them to, for a long time.

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For Lambert, the balance between quality and sustainability is non-negotiable. If we need to buy products, why not buy ones that are made beautifully and built to last? Thoughtful design empowers small changes in day-to-day routines that lead to consistent, long-term change.

"Being able to live consciously is a privilege of modern life," says Lambert. "This past century is the first time in human history that we have the luxury of being forward thinking, and now more than ever, our future depends on it."