finn-savotta

[finn-savotta]

MADE TO ENDURE

Savotta was founded in 1955 under the name of “Pylkönmäen nahkatyö”, Pylkönmäki being the village where we first started out and “nahkatyö” meaning “leatherwork”. Back then our founders Allan and Marjatta Halme focused on making gear for backcountry lumberjacks, leather mittens, backpacks etc. The lumber industry was a big part of reconstructing our country and economy after the second world war.

Since this sort of work was extremely hard on equipment, Allan said “Tehdään niin että kestää!”, meaning “Let’s make these to endure!”, which caught on as both a guideline and motto. This is where our “Made to endure” slogan comes from. These same basic principles guide our work still.

Although we make our gear strong enough to endure hard use over the years, “Made to endure” is much more than just that. For us making enduring gear means of course that it’s built to last a long time in hard use, but also overall staying power. Although we are constantly and surely evolving, and so is the gear we make, we don’t twist and turn with the trends too much. We focus on our own way of doing things and rely on proven design choices. When we make gear, we make it to endure not only hard use but also time itself, what we make today we intend to have purpose and use for years and decades to come.

Gear wears out in use, and things break, this is unavoidable. We do our best to ensure longevity through design and material choices, and also repairability and spare parts availability to keep our gear going through the years.

Some details we tend to pay special attention to is using strong enough materials when needed and reinforcing stress points with bartacks and double or triple stitching. And overall constructing our gear in a straightforward manner instead of doing lots of finnicky little details which can be possible failure points in long use.

When it comes to straightforward durability and longevity, here are some real-life examples: - Some tents we’ve made for the Finnish Defence Forces in the 1960’s are still used today. Worn, torn and repaired but still going strong. - Military load carrying gear, backpacks, combat load carrying kit etc. that we’ve made for the Finnish Defence Forces tends to be in service for decades, which means extremely hard use day in and day out. This couldn’t be accomplished with shoddy material choices and flimsy construction. - We get decades old backpacks in for repairs from time to time. These have been carried on countless hikes and usually require zipper replacements and such, and back they go. - We’ve heard praise from troops in Ukraine who found out they could pack our packs full of mortar ammunition and haul them around without seams and straps ripping, unlike some other packs they had which we’re constantly breaking apart.

Of course, design and material choices can’t be done with only durability in mind. Functionality must come first, as otherwise that durability won’t be worth anything. This does lead to our gear not being the most lightweight stuff out there, we know, but such is life. Neither is it the heaviest though, and we do our best to trim off excess weight when possible, using lighter materials where suitable and overall sensible design. Making enduring gear also has sourcing and environmental aspects. All our production is done in the EU, we run our own factories in Finland and Estonia, and all subcontractors we use are also located in the EU. With 97% of our materials being sourced from the EU, 2% from the US and 1% from Asia we strive to keep our supply chain as tight and short as possible, using only highly reputable and preferably as local as possible suppliers. All our operations are run according to ISO 14001: 2015 Environmental certification, and all materials we use are REACH compliant. Part of our business strategy is also keeping considerable material buffers in stock. This helps keep our production going through sudden changes, such as the COVID crisis and war in Ukraine, which both affected material availability suddenly and drastically. This requires considerable investments, but it is an important part of keeping our production going smoothly through hard times.

Thus “made to endure” indeed means a lot more than just tough gear, it encompasses our whole work ethic, operations, sustainability and continuity in everything we do.

[finn-savotta]

MADE BY SAVOTTA

Most people who invest in our gear are also interested in how it’s made. We want to be as transparent as possible about this, how we manufacture our gear and from where we source our materials is both a matter of pride and values for us. Our stuff is not made to be cheap, it’s made to function and endure.

We are a Finland based, Finnish company employing a total of over 200 employees in total at our facilities in Finland and Estonia. Due to the ever-increasing demand some of our manufacturing is done by subcontractors, the select few subcontractors we use are based in Finland, Estonia and Poland. All quality control is done at our headquarters in Karstula, Finland.

100% of our products are made in the European Union.

97% of our materials come from the European Union.

The majority of materials we use are made in the EU. Most of the webbing we use is Finnish made. All except for Multicam Cordura we use is EU made. Our Multicam fabrics and webbing are US made. Some buckles and fabrics we use are made in Asia. 97% of our materials are sourced from the EU, 2% from the US and 1% from Asia.

With 97% of our materials being EU sourced, and all manufacturing being done in the EU, we can proudly say that our gear is indeed very much EU made, and that’s quite something!

At our headquarters in Karstula, Finland we do pretty much everything. Our main offices and logistics are located here, our production facility in Karstula offers our full spectrum of manufacturing capabilities: metalworking, laser cutting, vacuum forming and of course a lot of sewing. Having all our production capabilities at our HQ offers flexibility when needed and is a fundamental necessity for our product development.

Our facilities in Estonia are used for large scale sewing of our regular textile products. Big production runs of our packs, pouches etc. are mostly sewn here.

If you’re wondering where your specific piece of Savotta gear was made – just check the tag! These mostly say simply “Made in Finland”, “Made in Estonia” or “Made in Poland”. If it says “Made in Finland & Estonia” then that means just that, the work of that product has been split up between our two facilities.

SAVOTTA

Finn-Savotta designs and manufactures high quality functional equipment for demanding professional and recreational use in extreme environments.

[finn-savotta]

OUR HISTORY

SAVOTTA – MADE TO ENDURE SINCE 1955

“Pylkönmäen Nahkatyö” (Pylkönmäki Leatherworks), later to become Savotta, was founded by Allan and Marjatta Halme in 1955 in the town of Pylkönmäki, 30 km from our current headquarters and factory in Karstula.

In the very beginning Pylkönmäen Nahkatyö made equipment for loggers, gloves, bags and backpacks. The focus was on durability, and the motto was “let’s make them to last”. After World War II Finland had to pay significant sums of war reparations to the Soviet Union, and with one of our main natural resources being the vast forests a lot of this money came from logging sites, thus there was a great demand for suitable equipment.

The company quickly grew and began producing backpacks and bags for recreational use. In the 1960’s “Pylkönmäen Nahkatyö” was renamed “Savotta Retkeilyväline” (Savotta Hiking/outdoors equipment), taking it’s new name from the Finnish word savotta, which means a logging site or operation, and the company moved from Pylkönmäki to the current site in Karstula.

The selection expanded further to include tents and the demand for large external frame hiking backpacks started growing. During this time Savotta began working with the Finnish Defence Forces, designing and manufacturing tents and load carrying equipment.

In the 1970’s the company name was again changed into it’s current form, Finn-Savotta Oy, and the business continued growing and expanding. Allans and Marjattas children Anita and Riitta took over the business. They continued to run the business until ownership was again passed down to Anitas sons Elmo and Julius in 2016.

Throughout the decades Savotta has stayed on the same course as established in the very beginnings of the company. We’re still making tents, backpacks, bags and other load carrying equipment for recreational outdoors and military use, and we still make them to last.

To see what we are about today, check out our website https://www.savotta.fi