Salient Knives are a bespoke handmade hunting knife company based in North Kent. They create exclusive hand-finished hunting knives for the discerning country sports enthusiast using the finest locally sourced materials.

As beautiful as they are practical, the knives include stunning figured wood handles and combine expert craft skills with the very latest precision manufacturing techniques to produce hunting knives of the highest quality. For the ultimate in exclusivity, the company even offers a hand engraving and personalisation service.  A Salient hunting knife is a statement piece, a hallmark of quality and refinement that you can sport with pride in the field. It will last a lifetime, never let you down and, in due course, become a treasured heirloom.

Salient Knive’s founder Marc Engall, explains more,

“Salient was founded after close friend world renowned knifemaker Stephen Wade untimely passed in 2016.  I was inspired to follow my mentor’s footsteps and create my own range of knives. My vision was to bring together the expert insights and craft skills I had learnt from Stephen, with the expertise in engineering and precision manufacturing of co-founder, Cameron McIntosh, to offer knives that set new standards in performance and style. After five years in design, development, and sourcing of specialist partners who share our commitment to quality, we now produce a range of hunting knives for the world to use.”

Challenges of Covid-19 gives way to new opportunities

Marc started the business in late 2020, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.  This was a tough time to start as UK hunts and shoots had been cancelled. So, Marc found himself looking for new markets.  Through a contact in the USA, he established that there was a thriving bespoke hunting knife market that Salient could tap into.  Marc quickly realised that other countries including China would desire hand-finished quality knives made in Britain. 

With the idea of expanding into the United States and other countries came the challenge of personalisation. Manually, it was time-consuming and costly, and Marc was looking for innovative help and advice.

“As a new business we faced the same challenges as all other businesses, we just had to look into the abyss and walk forward.”

How the programme helped his business

Although Marc had spent 26 years working for other people, so there was a lot he already knew, he explains how he still found the programme very helpful,

“There were some things that I hadn’t taken the time to really think about and really learn and this enabled me to go and do that.”

He was able to use the online video tutorials to boost his professional experience, recognised elements he didn’t know and identified the content most worth pursuing.

“The videos, the group interactions and personal support has been really excellent in helping me identify where there are areas of vulnerability and weakness and start to address those. It’s been very, very good.”