Nowadays, when talking about sustainability we often refer to questions related to the environment, yet the word sustain also means the quality of being able to continue something over a period of time. Right at the boarder of county Surrey, on the southwest side of London, the pottery Surrey Ceramics has found a balanced way of sustaining an ancient and simple craft which in this day and age is being greatly challenged by mass production and advanced technology. We have talked to Toby Hutchins, Sales Director at Surrey Ceramics, about their approach to contemporary pottery and how they manage to sustain, and even grow, their business.
When you describe the pottery’s story, you sum it up with this sentence: ‘True to tradition, in tune with the times’. Could you elaborate on what this means?
Sure, this sentence suggests a balance and how we at Surrey Ceramics honour both tradition and demand. We make use of the old craft tradition that pottery is while being open and flexible towards our clients. We operate as a highly hands-on pottery with about 7-10 sets of hands on a product before it’s finished. And this is the key to our achievement; we are not restricted to producing in big numbers. We can remain flexible, adapt to the needs in the market and therefore take on projects of various sizes.
Surrey Ceramics was founded in 1956, producing giftware for boutiques and department stores in London. How did the pottery and business grow from there?
Yes, back in the day, our pottery was especially famed for our porcelain clocks but that wasn’t a sustainable product. In 1991, we then went into the hospitality sector thanks to a contract we had made with a pub during a local trade show. Since then, we’ve been developing our tableware collection in close contact with restaurants and chefs who have specific needs and wishes for their establishments.
Today, we have 38 people working in the factory and 75 employees in total. And we’re still growing. In particular over the past five years, we’ve seen a transition with more and more demand for our type of product. We experience a renewed interest in products made in the UK which is probably partly related to the trying periods we’ve had of both Covid and Brexit. It’s harder to get stuff in from overseas and customers are therefore becoming more aware of what is being produced locally. Our product is different and we see that people are interested in something different. Restaurants do not want to have the same tableware as the rest. And this is exactly what we’re proposing, custom-made tableware.
Today, being competitive in the market of tableware and ceramics must be such a challenge, especially when you insist on making it in the traditional way. How do you manage to sustain both craftsmanship and business?
We offer a niche product to a niche market, and with this product we can easily showcase and communicate what we do. This makes us totally confident about what type of service we can offer. The reason why we manage to create a good balance is due to several factors. First of all, we offer a handmade product; we stay true to that aspect of craftsmanship. Secondly, we propose a niche product; we don’t see anybody else with the set-up we have, not in the UK and also not overseas. We offer 200 different shapes and 35 different glazes which makes 16’000 combinations. Each of our orders are made to order with customers being able to tailor exactly to their needs. In the small quantities we are able to produce, I don’t see that happening anywhere else. Thirdly, the customer is key. We have been specialising in this area for more than three decades now. Working together with your customers and listening to their needs is very important, especially in hospitality. You have to know what the chefs and restaurant managers need, that’s how you keep up to date. And lastly, innovation. With our production set-up, we’re able to adapt and make changes from one day to the other. That’s the sustainability of us.
Of course, there are certain prices that we can’t compete with, in some of the other European countries they can replicate for a lot less. Yet, we experience a great interest from overseas and last year we sent out products to 14 different countries. They like the fact that it’s made in the UK.
We’ve found the right area to work in and the right size of it. If we go back ten years, we were overdoing what we did in terms of products which wasn’t necessarily good for us, we wanted to do too much. Now, we’ve streamlined our products and processes so we can be different and bespoke but in a feasible manor. It’s all about that balance.
Since about five years, you have been collaborating with Bautier on the tableware collection. Could you describe this specific collaboration and process?
Our collaboration with Marina has been quite different from how we usually work seeing she is a designer. We normally work with chefs who for example request that the products have to be particularly robust. Marina didn’t want her tableware to be too bulky, she preferred it to be more fine. She came to us with her shapes and her ideas of a glaze; she already had a specific project in mind and she wanted us to bring that concept to life. Regarding the glaze we got very lucky, because this can be the tricky part of the development phase as the glazes can be hard to get exactly right due to the chemistry. We had just been working on a new green glaze when Marina came over to visit us and when she saw that sample, she immediately chose that one which saved us a lot of time. Regarding the shapes, we had a third party helping us out, David Richardson from CP Ceramics who’s specialised in making models and moulds. He took Marina’s drawings, turned them into 3D models and had the right tools made for us to produce the perfect shapes. It took us some time to get the angles and curves right, some back and forth, but we eventually got there and we’re now up to nine different shapes.
How does the production process look like at Surrey, could you take us for a mental tour around the workshop?
We’ve recently gone through a factory layout change as we needed more warehouse space and expanding with a new warehouse has made a big difference to how we can operate. The factory is split into three departments. In the first department, we have four jigger jolly machines and five ram press machines, we have hand throwers working on traditional wheels and a small slip casting area. All the machines are operated by hand and we can make ten to fifteen different shapes in one day. In big factories, they do not have that flexibility. The finishing area hasn’t got as many machines as it is mainly manual work being carried out here, getting rid of the sharp edges and making the surfaces smooth. Then the pieces need to dry and get fired. We have two large kilns which you can put a full car in, they work on 24 hour cycles every day, and then we have four smaller kilns firing six days of the week. Some of the kilns have been custom-made for us, others have been bought from potteries which were closing down. It’s not easy to find these machines anymore. After the first firing, the products are glazed, most of them are dipped and some of them are also sprayed for various effects. After being fired a final time, they go to the warehouse.
Surrey Ceramics is run as an Employee Benefit Trust. What does this mean and why have you chosen to run it like this?
Our previous director set it up like this in 2007 and it’s also thanks to this structure that we remain a sustainable business. As long as we’re a trust, the business can’t be sold and we can go on forever. We wish to offer our employees something for the past, present and future. We have arranged the funerals of previous employees, we’ve built disability facilities, we offer investment and bonus schemes for everyone and a large part of our profit goes back into charities and local sponsorships. Our workshop is placed in the middle of a small village, we’re the heart of the village, and we create events to strengthen the local bonds and the community. We recently made some internal statistics which showed that 90 percent of our staff live within five miles. You don’t need a background in ceramics to come work here; our managing staff train our employees. We have a great base of knowledge in our supervisors; the factory manager has been here for 45 years, the others more than 20 years. They take great pride in passing on their knowledge.