November 27, 2022 Lucy Durtnall

TF visit Occidental Leather & Badger Toolbelts

We had the privilege to visit Occidental Leather & Badger Toolbelts site in Santa Rosa, California in October this year.

Badger Toolbelts was acquired by Occidental Leather this year and it is such a good pairing of brands. Not just the fact that Occi's facilities, knowledgeable designers & sewers experience but from a cultural perspective. Both Occi's team and Joel from Badger come from the same direction of being all round good human beings!

Everyone so clearly cares about their product, quality, after sales care and how they are working together in the team has a real family run business feel to it.

Michael and Joel took us on a site tour, we met the office crew, Aliza, Marc, Taylor who work on product design, ordering & sales.

We then went into the production area, which house both Occi and Badger. Michael talked us through the leather selection process, which ensures only the best sections of the hide are used for the pouches & belts in the Occi range.

This is what ensures the QC of the raw materials is at the high level it is. The hide which runs from the spine down the sides is the thickest part and as the hide stretches around the stomach it becomes thinner. The team therefore select the top part for the top of the pouch to ensure it is the strongest part of the hide.

Occi also have a CNC machine which can help plot the best use of the hide for the templates to be cut from, although a lot of the cutting is done by hand still.

After the hide has been cut, it is then passed to the sewing team. Most of the sewers have been with Occi for at least 15-20 years.

We met Patti who has been working at Occi for 27 years and apparently supplies a lot of tacos to the teams!

It was such an interesting visit and really showed us why both Occidental Leather & Badger Toolbelts have the lowest warranty /QC rate out of our range.