Gloucestershire plumbing company Mira Showers has marked a century of trading with a visit from Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, who officially opened a new facility at its factory in Cheltenham.
The shower manufacturer has launched a flexible workspace called Space 100 at its production site on Cromwell Road, which will allow its staff to collaborate on new product designs and innovations.
The brand, which is owned by US bathroom manufacturing firm Kohler, will also use the space to host events held by its charity and corporate partners, such as Cheltenham Town Football Club and Gloucester Rugby, and community activities including careers events with local schools.
The facility was formerly a warehouse, built on the site in the 1950s, and during the Covid-19 pandemic it was used for the production of ventilators for NHS intensive care units, after the company was appointed to assist with a government project.
On Tuesday, (January 25) the company’s board of directors greeted the Princess Royal, who was then escorted by managing director Craig Baker on a tour of the production facility.
Following the visit, Mr Baker presented the business’ charity partner, Sue Ryder, with a cheque for £105,000, raised through multiple fundraising activities last year.
Mr Baker said the royal visit was an “amazing” way for the company to celebrate its centenary year, after it won two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise within the last five years for its innovative shower technology.
Mr Baker said during the tour of the site Princess Anne, who resides at the Gatcombe Park country estate in the Cotswolds, had spoken about the earliest showering device in the Royal buildings, including one in Scotland that Queen Victoria had commissioned.
Mr Baker said: “I asked her if she had used it, and she had, but she was actually a bather by preference. Going around the production lines she was really interested and had lots of conversations and questions around sustainability.
“Her line of enquiry was very current and really pushing us actually to continue to innovate and try new things. She recited different businesses that she visited and suggested we go and see them and maybe they’d be able to help us. I think her being Gloucestershire-based she’s quite pro us continuing the story.”
The business was originally founded in London in 1921 as Walker, Crosweller and Co by Scottish engineer James MacFarlane Walker to import gauges for boilers.
The company went on to develop the world’s first thermostatic shower before later moving to the Whaddon Works in Cheltenham in 1937.
Among the company’s other achievements are making shower valves used by the British military during the Second World War and supplying showering equipment to post-war public institutions such as schools and hospitals.
It developed its first instant electric showers in the 1970s when the Mira brand name was extended to cover all mixing valve and flow control products marketed in the UK, while its Rada brand was introduced to international export markets.
The company changed its name to Caradon Mira in the 1980s and then became part of the Kohler company as Kohler Mira in 2001 in a deal worth £300m.
Mr Baker told BusinessLive the brand had been able to endure due to its investment in innovation and its "bravery to adapt" its business and its people.
The company employs around 800 staff in total across its operations with around 150 employees still walking into the Cheltenham site to work.
Mr Baker said there were 160 to 170 people working in the business that had been with it for 25 years or more. Mr Baker himself is marking 25 years service in 2022 having begun his career within design engineering, moving into the marketing division before becoming managing director three years ago.
He said the company was “proud” to be based in Gloucestershire and had no plans on leaving the county.
“The original Cheltenham town planning council back in the 1930s really did have vision; they pretty much gave this site to us at a very cheap price with the proviso they were building a council estate around it and the factory is here to provide those residents with work," he said.
"Some 85 years on there’s about 150 people that still walk in, and some of them are third generation. Clive, who I presented to Her Royal Highness earlier today, has done 40 years with us and his grandmother worked here assembling valves. That is the soul in this business; it’s got a very family feel."
As well as participating in the government ventilator project, Mira Showers changed its operations during the pandemic by investing £28m in a new fully automated distribution centre in Worcester, where its shipping and receiving components.
Mr Baker said one of the biggest challenges during the period had been bringing engineers from Germany into the country to fit the robotics and automation machinery, though the company was able to grow during the instability.
Mr Baker said: “We’re pleased to say that during 2021 that theme of people renovating their homes, the new-build market being very strong with lots of houses being built, that we grew nearly 20% over our prior highest turnover. This brought huge amounts of stresses and strains. Everyone asks ‘that must have been amazing news?’ It was in terms of the numbers.
“There were difficulties for us to secure the right materials, the right componentry, when supply chains go very tight. We’re fortunate that the strength and depth of the team here have managed to secure enough that we’ve been able to keep supplying them.”
Mr Baker said he expected "continued economic aftershocks” from the pandemic in 2022, including more disruption to global supply chains and increased shipping costs.
“Last year we saw this surge in demand, and this year what we are seeing is this surge of inflationary pressures and that supply chain constraint," he said. "We are not completely isolated to that.
"We have a nice web of around 110 suppliers in the UK who feed us, but we are also dependent on global supply chains as well.
“I think the market itself will at least level off, that’s how we expect the market to go, maybe even fall back slightly, just as people begin travelling again and have had enough of home renovations and want to go out and enjoy themselves."
Mr Baker said the firm was seeing a "really strong market" in new-build housing and social housing, and was selling "a lot" into government, student and university, and health-service projects. He said the business was expecting to grow by about 6-to-7% in 2022.
He added the pandemic had exposed every business to its “pressure points” from a supply chain perspective, but with firms operating in a global marketplace it was “very difficult” to have a product that was completely homegrown.
Mira Showers produces around 650,000 showers a year, mostly for the UK market but it also exports to some of Kohler’s other regions as a centre of excellence.
Mr Baker said the company’s next 100 years would be all about sustainability, both from an environmental and a business perspective.
“In our business we’ve got a great opportunity to influence the amount of energy and water that is used by our products," he added. "But actually for us, it's business sustainability. How many businesses actually make it to 200 years? It’s about that continuous evolution of what you do and what new technologies will bring.”
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