About Unior

Producing over 7.6 million pieces of tools and sheet-metal goods per year, Unior’s history goes back to 1919 when it was founded as the Styria Iron-Industrial Company (SIIC) in Zreče, Slovenia where the headquarters remains to this day. SIIC produced forged tools for the agriculture, mining, and craft industries. Zreče, in the north-east of Slovenia, has a long history of metalworking and blacksmithing and the Styria Iron-Industrial Company was one of several forging operations in the region.

After the Second World War the forge renovated and upon completion of the project in 1947 the company was renamed to Factory of Forged Tools Zreče, admittedly not the most creative name but very descriptive of what it was the company actually did. At this time the company also began focusing its research and development efforts into general hand tools, or so-called universal tools. This change in focus is what led to another renaming of the company in 1974 to Unior, the Factory of Forged Tools Zreče.

Unior is actually a portmanteau of the Slovenian words for “universal tools”, or UNIverzalna ORodja.

Having become quite adept at turning raw steel into fine quality tools, the company’s efforts in the 21st century focused on refining things even further to meet and surpass various international quality standards and much effort was put into ensuring the production process was as environmentally friendly as possible.

Today the company is comprised of four divisions: Forging, Hand Tools, Special Machines, and Tourism.