Hi and welcome to the Interior Design Podcast. Our guest today is Lewis Pullen from Grohe. He's a good friend and he's really knowledgeable about the subject cradle to cradle. Now cradle to cradle is all about the circular economy. It's all about recycling to manufacturing to enabling recycling again and making it easy. Lewis is going to go into much more depth about it during the show and we're really excited to bring you on board. We hope you enjoy.
Welcome to episode two of the Interior Design Podcast and today our guest is Lewis. Always a pleasure, never a chore. Thanks for having me. The one and only. Thank you. My answer to anything, especially for these two, my favourite interior designers. Yeah, you say that to all the interior designers. Thank you for such a warm welcome. Do you have a jingle for this podcast? Because you
know the best podcasts do have a little jingle at the beginning. So I don't know whether you guys have thought about that. Yeah. Jingle. There you go Lewis, just for you. We played the jingle again. You girls, you girls. I'd also like to say this is my second podcast of the week, Saving the Best Till Last. Why? What? Why don't we be the first? Because as I just said, I like to save the best till last and it's Friday, we have doughnuts
in front of us. So I'd much rather spend this podcast with yourselves on a Friday rather than a healthy living podcast that I did last Wednesday. Healthy living? Yeah, believe it or not, healthy living. You did a podcast about healthy living. On the way home, I actually did stop off for a kebab on the way home. And this is coming from the guy that last night got back at half one in the morning or whatever it was on a Thursday, on a school night. On a school night.
I can be professional. Thanks girls for telling the world that. But yeah, big shout out to actually Master Kebabs in Chatham. I thought you were going to shout out the podcast. Oh and the podcast. Shout out to my favourite kebab shop. Honestly, to all the local paths that hang outside the kebab shop, that's the posh chavs. You know, rather than the working class chavs outside McDonald's. But shout out to you guys too. But yeah, so. So what are you going to speak to us about today?
Well we can talk about food if you like. I mean, I think it's, I mean your podcast I guess is about educating interior designers. So we will touch on that for an aspect of today's podcast. So we'll talk about sustainability, but not necessarily to greenwash, which I think a lot of people do. We'll talk about an aspect of sustainability, cradle to cradle. Which I guess is a bit of a buzzword out there at the moment. Cradle to cradle as it should
be. People should be talking about it. What does it mean to you girls? Do people talk about cradle to cradle? Do different manufacturers ever mention it to you? How important is it to you too? I've been speaking to some flooring companies about cradle to cradle recently and actually it's a really, really good way of knowing that something is sustainable. Because there's loads of different ways of being sustainable, but there's actually not that many people
who are getting qualified. But at the same time, it doesn't mean that the people who haven't got cradle to cradle certification, is it certification? Is that the right expression? There's different certifications. You have, there's a scheme where you have a bronze, a silver, a gold and a platinum certification. So essentially it's to keep driving to improving your sustainability, to improving your cradle to cradle. At the moment we are gold certification
I must say. I work for a company called Growr. I don't know if I mentioned that earlier. Not going to Growrise people over this podcast, but I do work for Growr and we are currently leading the market in cradle to cradle, being the only manufacturer in the industry with gold certification. Oh wow. I don't know why I struggled with that word, but gold certification.
So Lewis, obviously because this podcast is about reaching an audience that's not just from a professional, in a professional capacity, we're trying to make sure that this is accessible to everyone. Just briefly explain the concept of cradle to cradle to them. Oh, okay. So I would say people, a lot of people have heard of the term cradle to grave.
So it's a little bit of a play on words to cradle to grave. So when you think about cradle to cradle, you need to think about the circular economy that would be in our, in sort of our manufacturing in Germany would be manufacturing of a tap, a shower or a thermostat, whatever
that may be. Once we've manufactured it, we send it out to the customer. It's transported to the site, whether it be hotels or high end residential projects after 10 years or whenever the refurb is coming about for that hotel, we would then take the product back. They would, it was the end of its life cycle. So rather than throwing that product away, and I must actually point out that 50% of the world's waste comes from the construction
industry. So we all have people that are in that industry, myself, you two girls and everybody else. Anyone, anyone. We're all responsible. We're all responsible. So we all need to think about this, bear it in mind that it should, it should have been done before, but it's like, you know, it's quite a slow process, I feel at the moment, which is why I wanted to touch on it today. But anyway, just to bring that back. So once we, at the end of its cycle on site, we would then transport
it back to, back to our manufacturing plant. We'll then put it back into the mix and we'll make sure every part of that tap is fully recyclable as well. Put it back into the mix and then I don't want to say spit it back out, but we then manufacture it again, I guess, and send it straight back out to site. So it's that whole circular economy. So it's basically fully recycling the product essentially. So I don't know how you, how you feel about that, whether you think that's a thing of
the future. I mean, I mean, a window into the future for us would be also be 3D printing, which I can go on and chat about 3D printing forever. So I'm not going to do that today, but one day the future is, the future is emailing taps. Rather than saving on transportation costs. That's just insane. That's not going to be our lifetime. I mean, definitely not my lifetime. I don't see myself living to an older wrinkly age personally.
Why is that? It's just like the healthy lifestyle podcast. What are you talking about? And I've literally just literally got off the train straight to you girls with about three hours sleep as well. So that also doesn't help. But you know, stranger things have happened. Maybe we'll be older wrinkly together one day. Still doing the podcast. I'm sure it will still be going by then.
I think it's really important that people are aware of it. I think, you know, in answer to your question about how we feel about it, I think that it's been a long time coming and it's just taken the world that we live in now and the way that the world is and the, you know, the amount that we've kind of fucked up over the last hundred years. I think it's just yeah, it's I think it's a really positive thing. But people just need to get on board with it. I think that's the thing, isn't it?
I mean, the best way to do that is podcast like this. Really, that's how we're going to sort of, you know, get people talking about it. You know, it's all about education, which is why I'm touching on today. It works with because you're looking to educate interior designers and people might think, you know what, let's specify grower and their cradles cradle range. You know, so it's not that. Yeah, but jokes aside, I think the rest of the world manufacturers, we want them to catch
up. We want them to actually, you know, we have to do this. We have to start thinking about it now. So yeah, it's going to be interesting the next few years. We're developing new products and at the moment we actually have only got a certain amount of products with our cradles cradle range, basically testing the waters really to see if it works, which I'm sure it will and it will increase. So the products we have are our most popular products. So
we want to touch as many projects as possible. Hence why we chose those products. Essentially, what we're going to be doing in the next few years is to develop more products, more looking at hospitality. So I feel our products at the moment are more catered towards residential in the cradles cradle range. But we'll be looking at more hospitality products. So getting
all the Hilton hotels, Marriott hotels on board as well with this new concept. But yeah, I think one of the things that is really important from our perspective as designers, if we're, so I'm a designer project manager. So if I'm project managing something, I think it's really important that I discuss the disposal of the existing furniture, interior, strip out waste. How is that disposed of? Because I think there's an awful lot of people who just go, Oh, there's
a whole office there full of office furniture. Let's just chuck it in the bin. Or, you know, and it's not, it's not necessarily worth anything. But actually when I, so I've stripped out a few restaurants and taken the furniture away. Sorry, you stripped out a few restaurants? Sorry, did I? It was a late night. I just want to make sure I heard that correctly.
Past life. Don't tell everyone. Secrets out now. Oh dear. But I stripped out the restaurant, brought it back to the warehouse and I've sold it all on Facebook marketplace, made a few quid. At the moment I'm selling off some chairs for a pound because they're in such a state. I have seen you clogging up my feed actually on marketplace. Yeah, but. What's Hayley selling now? I think I got outbid for a chair actually the other day. So, you know,
it didn't go down too well, but I'll keep my eyes on there. So I'm actually getting married this year, so I'm looking for new bits for my wedding. And I think you put on there a few wedding bits as well. If I remember right. Okay. I'll come to the warehouse. Okay. Good. Good. We'll see. Have a little look as I'm up here. But yeah, I think it's, I think that kind of behavior is really important. It is, it is about kind of you to, there's
a lot of companies out there that will refurbish furniture. So rather than putting a whole lot of office chairs and tables into landfill, it needs to go to those companies that recycle. Yeah. Aim for a world without waste. Essentially. That's what we need to do. And it's so hard though, because we live in without going into a full on rant about it. The world we live in, we literally live in this throw away. Everyone lives in this throw away society.
It's got to change. I'll buy it. Oh, it's broken. Yeah. Just buy another one. I'll get Amazon to deliver it tomorrow. Like it just, it blows my mind a little bit. I think the other thing is the way that things are manufactured. So things should be manufactured to last. And I think there's a north, there's an awful lot. We moved away from that though. Didn't we? We were there and then it's, you know, and, and it's just, hopefully it's going full
circle. There's, there's companies out there though, that do manufacture furniture and, and all of the interior fit out. So it can be reused. Like, you know, flooring doesn't have to be glued down and you know, furniture can be made, so it can be unscrewed and reupholstered. So it's strong enough to last the test of time. Yeah. And that's all about us all having the responsibility together. Manufacturers, huge responsibility for getting their products
correct and using the resources that they're using. Where are they getting those resources from? You know, that's all vitally important. Not just the consumer, but we're all in this
together. How do you though, the difficulty I think comes though, when as a designer, if you've got that information and you're passionate about it and you see the value in it, massively see the value in it, ultimately the client decides there's an element of, I could put a product in front of a client that is cradle to cradle certified and I could
sell it and sing about it until the cows come home. But ultimately, how do we educate the, you know, the general public that actually you, this is something that we should all be. Do you know what I mean? Another element to this is that not everybody has got a certification, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their product isn't recyclable and recycled. People are doing it anyway. And, but they're not. So actually this cradle to cradle certification
I think should be almost legislation. Everyone needs to do that with a product. But do you know what I mean? I think everyone needs to do it. So everyone knows, a bit like calories on McDonald's food. Everyone's very educated and everyone's very aware of what they're doing. Where at the moment you've got some people who are certified, some people who
aren't. And actually the ones who are certified are leading the way, but the ones who aren't, some people are too small or they can't afford it or whatever, or they just haven't got the inclination to do it because they don't need to. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you're going to run the a hundred meters, you're not going to run it in nine seconds flat first time round are you? You're going to take, for me, I'm going to take about 17 or 18 seconds to run that. So it's all like, and it's like
you're working up to it. You're working up to that, that finish line really, which is, you know, an improvement. But again, it's, I'm just throwing it back to you a little bit in terms of, is it, should you just be recommending certain products to your customers? Because you said, obviously, essentially the customers have the last say, but when you say the last say, should they have the last say on a certain product or your range? Yeah, range of products that you're offering.
Or, I mean, but you know, this whole thing, as I say, is about education, it's about everyone, it's about that end user as well. Do you have a responsibility to, for certain products that you're pushing, do you feel, or is it your responsibility? Is it not? It's a bit of a, yeah. Definitely is our responsibility. A hundred percent. And I think there's certain clients
who are, who will be, oh no, I want this. But generally people come to you as an interior designer because they don't want to do it and they, or they haven't got time to do it. I'm just conscious about, God, I feel like I'm playing devil's advocate here that I'm just like poking. Like, well yeah, but what about this? Poke the bear. I, you know, I just feel like there's, ultimately we all work to budget. You know, the clients
work into a budget, we're working to a budget. And I hate to say it, but we do, you know, the majority of clients, they have a budget that they're working to and they'll be saying, if I've got a product from grower that's cradle to cradle certified, for example, a tap, for example, and it costs X amount because naturally grower have put investment into creating it, into creating that cycle. Yeah, yeah, true. So therefore the product might be- A certain quality as well.
So therefore the product might be slightly more expensive. In which case it's like, you know, are they, do they see the value in the extra cost on that? Especially if the rest of the project, the other elements within that project aren't cradle to cradle. Cause at that point they're saying, well, I've got 15 taps in this project that are cradle to cradle certified, but the rest of the, the rest of the elements of that design maybe aren't so. So it's like a small drop in the ocean.
It's a difficult one. And I would say our cradle to cradle ranges are probably about 10% more expensive than the standard tap. So it is a little bit more expensive. So that does come into, you know, cause the value- But not disproportionately though, do you know what I mean? Not disproportionately. And in terms of bringing the product back from Cyclo, a lot of people ask me who pays for the cost? Who pays for bringing that product back from that hotel
on back to sort of Germany to ourselves? The honest answer is we're, we're working on that. So in terms of, you know, we, this, we started, you know, last year, it's sort of cradle to cradle. It's a new product for us. So we've actually got another sort of eight, nine years to think about ways that we can best sort of, you know, best do this whole the cradle
to cradle really. So essentially it will probably be us sort of paying for that product or it will corporate in the price, which then is a bit, you know, kind of goes with what you're saying. It might be a little bit more expensive because you have to put that in the cost of bringing the product back as well. So there is that. And I guess in the world that we're in, in the construction industry towards the end of a project, value engineering comes
in and one of the first things that is value engineered are the fixtures. The last things that go into the project. So that is, it is an issue and it's about, I guess, thinking how to tackle that. I think it's a massive task, isn't it? For to reeducate the world and you know, and the stat that you mentioned earlier about the kind of construction industry, massive waste.
Yeah. It's construction. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think as well with project managers, I think it's, it's a responsibility of the project manager to almost make sure that they have that built into the cost because the biggest part of the project is going to be the construction. When you get to interior design stage, yes, this is, that's where it all gets the fun stage that you do. And actually some, in some elements, especially commercial, that's the most important bit
because that's the bit that makes people feel and want to be in that space. And that is often the stuff that gets value engineered and that's the bit that we control. And as a project manager, I always kind of try and make sure that that doesn't get cut. But the last few years have just completely screwed us on that because everything's gone up. So you might have been able to afford a cradle to cradle tap three years ago, but now the
costs have gone up. You've still got the same budget as you had three years ago and it's the projects only coming to fruition. Yeah. Nice. True. This is, this is nice being here. It feels quite professional because we're usually in a bar putting the world to rights and I feel that, you know, kind of doing it in this manner. This is a bit serious, isn't it? Very, very professional. I've never had such a more intense, we've had a lot of intense conversations. I thought
you were going to say intelligent then. Well, I mean, I wouldn't go that far. I mean, I mean, yeah, intelligent, you know, so it's, this is probably the most intelligent conversation we've ever had actually, to be fair. So it's, yeah, I'm seeing a whole new Haley and a whole new, a whole new firecracker Cheryl. Yeah. I think we know what we're talking about.
I think so. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, we can work on that. But yeah, no. So, I mean, just to rewind, as Craig David once said, is it just, I mean, obviously I'm speaking about this all the time when I go into meetings with architects and designers, feel like I'm a bit, I don't know, I'm not sort of boring people. It feels a bit of a, a wheel that
I'm going around just talking and talking about. But do other people come in and like, you know, carpet companies, tile companies, do they come in and talk to you about this? I mean, are they, or, or, or is this? When they're certified, yeah. Oh, okay. It's, it's more of a USP for the company. Yeah. Rather, okay. That kind of makes sense, but also we
all need to be talking about it because of the, the impact that we're having. I think one of the things we can do as designers is to always ask, do you have a certification for cradle to cradle? What is the certification? And then if, if people always ask, the suppliers will then catch on that all that we need to do this. You still work for them, but at least
you're talking about it. I think that naturally it's just, it's a natural evolution of, you know, suppliers that have come in, you know, years ago and it was very much a conversation that we were having about sustainability. When sustainability is very much a kind of the buzzword, okay, well let's talk about how, how the company is sustainable and the products are sustainable. Then it's kind of moved onto the whole product life cycle of
so cradle to grave, how it's then disposed of what happens to it after that. And then we've kind of, we've also been, we've heard a lot about being carbon neutral as a manufacturer, as a supplier. So I think it will be good to hear more people talking about this concept of cradle to cradle and how product can be completely sustainable in that, in that way. Yeah. Speaking of, talking about it, if anyone out there would like any light reading on
the matter, yeah, I mean, I've got, I've not got any shares in this book. I must point out it's just, um, uh, professor Michael Braunhardt was the, was the pioneer of cradle to cradle and he actually does have his own book, which is available as an international bestseller on Amazon. I think it's around sort of 7 99. Um, I actually have one with me today that my dog's half chewed, but it's, um, exactly. And it's actually a signed copy as well. Exactly.
Exactly. So it's the whole, um, circular economy with a dog eats it and then, um, and then, uh, yeah, let's not go there. Let's go. That's a, that's a story for another day, but, um, all jokes aside, um, I thought, do you know what? Cradle to cradle. Okay. It's my work life. Um, you want to switch off sometimes when you get home from work. Do I want to be reading this at late at night or round, around the pool when I'm on holiday? And I'm
not even, I'm not just saying this. I actually did bring it with me recently and I did read it round the pool and I'm joking. It's actually really interesting and well written. It's not boring. It's really sort of thought provoking. Um, and yeah, I really enjoyed the book to be honest with you. So I'd highly recommend it. Michael, if you hear this podcast, then I would accept any, uh, we'll see how your sales get on today. I'm off the back of this
podcast. Yeah. So that's Michael Braunhardt. Yeah. Cradle to cradle. So we making the way we make things. Yeah. So I actually met professor Michael Braunhardt at last year's Clark and well design week. So he came in and did a talk in the Mozart showroom, which RIP are no longer in the UK market. Moses. Sorry about that. So it's a no. And so it's still around,
but fortunately not in the UK. Um, so yeah, such an empty showroom at the moment. I don't know why I'm talking about Moses, but, um, but yeah, um, as you can see, I do go off on tangents every now and then, but it wouldn't be me otherwise. Um, but, um, he came in and did a talk on quotes cradle. And it was so funny actually, when I was, I think, where was I initially, I think I was having a drink somewhere in one of the pubs in Clark and
well, and this guy walked past the window. And if you can imagine what a professor would look like, it was like oversized suit, straggly hair, these massive glasses. I'm like, I bet that's Michael Braunhardt. I never seen any pictures of him or anything like that before. And then, then I saw him about two hours later when we was in the showroom, getting ready, all the seats ready for the talk. And he wandered in and I was like, I just knew it was that
guy. I knew it was him. So yeah, if you ever see him, you know, you know who he is now. Say hi. I mean, yeah, he's a, he's a great guy and it was a very interesting man, very quirky, um, a bit crude sometimes as well. But I think that was, he did it in the right sort of fun way. And it was, um, a few eyebrows were raised, but it was a, quite a fun speech. So get, if you're interested in Cradle to Cradle, have a look at the Cradle to Cradle
book. It's a very short read. It's not like a huge doorstop. I think it's a couple of hundred pages. So have a little read, let us know how you felt about it. And it's really opened my mind as I hope it will open yours. So as you can tell, we're back in the room. You can tell we were just on a break there, um, looking at each other, who's going to speak first. Um, so I feel like, face full of donuts. Yeah. So in the break, we spoke about, I didn't, I've got, I've got, um,
yeah, our latest and greatest tap out. I brought my, my largest one for the girls to, uh, to see, which Cheryl was currently talking into. It's not the mic. She's currently talking into our large atrio tap. Yeah. Wouldn't be the first time with it. Revelations. I'm not going to comment. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Um, so I hope you enjoyed, um, why am I pretending to be a host? Yeah. Okay. So I hope you enjoyed the first section. This
is our show. Leave us alone. Yeah. Lewis has very kindly discussed cradle to cradle with us. Um, but he's got a whole lot of other things that he would really like to educate our listeners on. And we'd really like to hear from you as to what you would like to hear. So Lewis, what are your, just call me Jack subject Jack of all trades. So we have four subjects areas that we have Reba approved CPDs. Um, one of them, surprise, surprise
is craigs cradle. We've already mentioned this morning. Um, we have another, my second favorite, um, CPD that we deliver a grower is our 3d printing CPD, which is, um, essentially a window into the future. I would say that's how I would describe it. Um, it really sort of shows what we can do in the world of manufacturing. Uh huh. We do components within the task. I've definitely mentioned this to Cheryl before, but, um, which obviously forgotten. Yeah.
Um, it's basically, no, I wouldn't suggest for a second you would switch off when I'm talking. Um, so yeah, we have, um, a few standard, uh, well not standard there far from standard products. Um, we have a three, we have the icon 3d, there's a few taps that we do with 3d prints basically on these two huge machines in Dusseldorf. Um, they're the only machines that produce sort of the 3d taps at the moment. So it's very, very early stages. We produce
one a day. So as you can imagine, it's not the most, um, cost friendly products. So it's, um, yeah, but we essentially want to, um, show people what we can do and be able to one day email taps, which will be a thing of the future. Um, saving on transportation costs, sustainability, tick, tick, tick, all the boxes. Um, and it looks pretty cool. So if anyone's been to Norway, um, there's an underwater half submerged restaurant in Norway
where we have our 3d tap and a lot of people actually go there to see the tap. So they do, I mean, it's great food as well. And obviously, you know, Norway isn't the cheapest place to go probably to eat, especially at this restaurant, but it's worth going in there, having a meal, looking at how this works. It's pretty cool. It's almost like when you walk past the tap, it turns almost invisible, not completely obviously, but it's just, just how it's sort of like manufactured.
So um, yeah, just a quick short break there while I'm playing with my balls. Um, those are balls that Hayley's given me. They're stress balls. They're not, yeah. Um, not my actual balls, not my actual testicles. Um, so yeah, I mean, we're just talking about the underwater hotel in Norway and our 3d taps. Um, you sort of have to see it to believe it. I think it's probably the wrong thing for a podcast, but what we can do is a CPD
in our 3d taps and I can bring them along, show you the, um, the 3d taps. Um, even a pretty good question. I can bring them in, we can describe, we can describe them. Um, yeah. And if anybody's interested, we can then do a zoom call or something where you can see them and I can show you how they disappear and show you a few magic tricks at the same time. Well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve, must say, but it's, uh, it always goes to
the same place with you. That's why we get on so well. Exactly the reason. Anyway, anyway, moving on. So that's one CPD. Yeah. So moving on from our spooky taps, um, that's 3d printing. We have, um, another CPD in water saving, which is a, again, a Reba approved CPD for everybody's looking for Reba points. Um, so water saving is essential at the moment. It's always in the news. Drought, droughts are a problem. Host pipe bands are going to be
coming more and more frequent, especially in the south of England. And we, London is one of the biggest cities. London is one of the most likely cities in the next 10 years to run out of water. So it's all about how do we sort of recycle water and things like that really. Um, so that's why I hear something once where this is might be quite irrelevant where in London, if you drink the tap water, it's been through nine people. I delivered
a water saving CPD at Harp design about a year or so ago. And what's great about it is Haley's staff was obviously educator. I told her about my CPD because I mentioned this to, to a few, to a few of the girls. So she's totally just stolen your material. Just completely stolen it. I mean, yeah. Is there any point in me being here? Yeah, you did hear that Haley. You heard that right. It came out of my mouth. Literally came out
of the horse's mouth, the horse sitting between you two. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so it's, it's, it's been through at least 10 sets of kidneys. Um, basically. So you're drinking water that you may be drinking water that I've drank. How disgusting is that? Um, and you're drinking essentially my way because it's, there's not enough to go around. So it's kind of like, you know, it's just, it's just, again, it's like a circular economy in sort of the water
industry. So it's, um, yeah. So water saving is huge and we have products to maximize performance with only using a small amount of water. So it's all about how can you minimize the water usage and keep that performance at a high level. So there's ways that we can do that at Growr, whether that be regulators or restrictors that we implement into our products. So essentially making the product as sustainable as you need. If you need a certain water flow, a water
rate, we can make that happen with products that we put into our taps. So that's kind of where we would talk a little bit about that. Talk about other things in general with water saving, but it's a really interesting, quite a fun CPD interactive. The one I did here with you girls before everyone got involved. We had a giggle, lots of funny things. And so I would highly recommend that one, especially because I like talking about it and I've done
it more than a million times before. So yeah. Um, the other one, um, that we do is what one haven't I mentioned? It's not my favorite. I'm not going to lie. It's the hygiene CPD. I see, I can feel them both rolling my eyes. They're right next to me, but they're not actually, you know, cause obviously that is an important thing in the industry. So it's,
um, I mean, it was quite prevalent during COVID-19. So that was, I guess the time that we were delivering that more to architects and interior designers, um, during that phase. But at the moment, I don't really get many inquiries for the hygiene CPD, but if there's anyone out there that wants to learn how to wash their hands, then, um, let us know. Happy birthday thing. Don't we do the Boris happy birthday song? Oh God. What the hell was that? Let's not.
Happy birthday song. Was that water saving or hygiene? You had to sing happy birthday twice, wasn't it? That they said on the news. You're asking the wrong person. Well, because you'd never wash your hands. Is that why? Cause you're very unhygienic. No, we won't go there. There is definitely something there though. There's something there. Don't know what that may be, but we'll get it out of her. Don't worry about that. Was that all of the subjects or was it another?
So 3d printing. I've mentioned clothes cradle, water saving and hygiene. So that's essentially the four CPD. So I don't know whether you want to, I don't know. Is there anyone out there that would be interested in me waffling on for a little while about CPD? So happy to come back if you'll have me. Okay. So let us know. Yeah. Let's hear what the listeners think, what they, uh, you know, what they want to learn about, what they want to know.
And if there's any other subjects that you want to learn about, let us know. We'll get a guest in or we'll teach you what we know. If you're sick and tired of my voice, there's other colleagues of mine that also can run the CPD. So, um, don't be afraid to say I'm sick of his voice and we'll get someone else in. It's as if, come on. I mean, I'm staring at a big black tap in my face, which is a something. Why did you look at me?
I don't know. I don't know. It just, it just, I could feel you looking at me. It's a lovely black tap. Yeah. As far as black tap, big black taps go, it's not too bad, is it? It's a nice tap. Yeah. See a lot of people don't like us specifying black because they think that they don't clean up very nice. Funny you should say that. Um, El knew basically- That was not staged. Believe it or not. Um, so in the past, Grower have never done matte black products until
a few weeks ago, really, a couple of months ago. Reason being we work a lot in hospitality and we don't want to put our name to a product that isn't, you know, isn't going to suit the job because matte black products are essentially powder coated products. Um, you know, problems with the chipping, the washing. And as Hayley just alluded to, it's the same questions we get from designers. It's still quite sort of popular matte black products, but it's,
you know, it's about how they're manufactured. So we have a new version of the matte black tap where we manufacture in a different way to what is out there on the market. So it's a three coated lacquer product, which basically is as durable as our electric pater products. We've had the guys in the office with keys and all sorts trying to chip away at these taps and I can tell you one of them is facing me right now and it's a lift to serve another
day. So, um, if you guys are manufacturing or if you have matte black products in your mood boards and you're looking for, um, not just taps, um, we have the accessories and showers, et cetera, et cetera. Let's have a chat and, um, talk to you about the manufacturing of it. And it's, uh, yeah, it's a fresh off the, um, what's the term fresh off the press, the press, fresh off the press. But yeah, it's, um, yeah, is there any really exciting
things? What's new in the world of grower? That's like, that's not maybe, have you got anything like this bubbling? That's not, um, I guess I'm silk movie is something that's relatively new silk move. So basically our taps, if you can imagine a normal basin mixer, I could hear you all imagining a basin mixer now. So the center, so a basin mixer, you can go left for cold and you can go right for hot. Okay. That's how they normally work.
We have put something in our taps where in the central position, it's just cold because most people only need cold water. You're brushing your teeth, cold water, washing your hands. When you don't often need hot water. So why have the thermostat kicking in straight away when you lift the product in the central position? So that saves 60% energy compared to a normal tap because you don't need the thermostat kicking in. So having the thought of you actually
need to physically move it to be hot. It's saved so much energy, especially with the energy prices now as well. So that's something that's a bit of a USP. Quite a, quite a cool thing having on our taps. What's it called? Silk. Silk move. Silky and smooth. Just like, yeah. Where did you go there? I thought, you know, we had it far more. You didn't finish it though, did you? I didn't want to go too far. I was like, too scared. No, yeah, I couldn't
quite do it. I nearly did, but I didn't. Didn't want to go there. You can use your imaginations, I'm sure. But yeah, so that's essentially, the other thing I guess that would be new with ourselves would be we have a new sub brand we've launched recently, which I'm sort of heading in the UK, which is Grower Spa. So Spa is dedicated or focused on the A&D market, which is products with high end products. When you say A&D, can you just explain what
that means? I can't say that. Louis, be sensible. Architects and designers. So architects and designers out there, this is focused towards yourselves. We have a new collection, which is called the Private Collection, where you can fully personalise and customise your own taps, your own experience. So we've partnered with a company called Caesarstone, who I'm sure you guys have heard of. Great product, very durable, non-porous products. Can you
just explain to those who don't know what Caesarstone is? Caesarstone is essentially, I guess, work tops. It's stone products. I think they use porcelain as well. Natural stone marble products for work tops. Floors, I guess, as well. Public spaces. Really good market leaders as well, like ourselves. So it's a natural collaboration. So they essentially make our handles on our private collection using their vanilla noir and their white
Attica product range. So we're starting with those two products. We can go, obviously, somewhere with this in the future in terms of using more of the products. And they're just customisable taps? Customisable. They're not bespoke, are they? Bespoke, yeah. Well, essentially. Completely bespoke. OK, so it's using some of our previous range. So you see the tap you've got in front of you there. So it would come without the handles. You
can have any colour that you'd like. Can you describe the tap that you've got there because people can't actually see this? I would say it's long and bendy. So it's a mixer tap? It's a mixer tap with a long neck. If you can imagine a swan, it looks a bit like a swan neck. And it has two handles, either side crosshead handles. It comes in a standard
handle or a crosshead so you can sort of touch and feel either side of the tap. But you can see, yeah, so the idea, I've got so many thoughts and funny things running through my head. So basically, when you're on site, you can actually add the Caesarstone personalised parts of the tap, which is the handle section. I'm going to have to show you some pictures because again, it's something that is hard to describe until you're like, what? Is it
all on the Grower website? Let's put a link in the bio. www.growerspa.com is our new website for this particular grower sub-brand. So I would say have a look at it. It's a work in progress, the website still. It is live. But yeah, have a look. We'll put a link on the show notes for you. That'd be good. But yeah, this is fun. So if anyone wants to get in touch with you, Lewis, how can we get in touch with you? Well, you can just WhatsApp me,
holler, call me, whatever. Instagram, I'm on all the social sites so that's not a problem. But everybody else out there, I will leave my... Oh, is that just for me and Cheryl? Oh yeah. You guys can WhatsApp me, my number is... You guys can do none of those things. But it'd be lovely to meet you through Hayley or through Cheryl. I can say, should I say what my email address is or things like that? Or do you just want to put a link? How does
this work? I don't know. I'll put a link on. Okay, so Hayley will put a link on. Hopefully she'll remember. But yeah, I'd just like to say thanks for having me. It's been emotional as always. Love to come back if you'll have me. And it's Friday also. Have a bloody good weekend. Yeah. It's Friday, Lewis. Saturday, Sunday, what?