Pick of the potters

There are around 100 firms in Staffordshire involved in pottery production, from giants such as Wedgwood and Royal Doulton down to single units on industrial estates, but just a handful are deeply involved in the catering industry. The principal manufacturers of hotelware in Stoke-on-Trent are as follows:

Churchill hotelware

A family-owned firm until last November, when the company was floated on the stock market, though the family retain a majority shareholding. This year Churchill celebrates 200 years of tableware production in Stoke-on-Trent, but the company was a late entrant into serious hotelware design and production. Since the early 1980s, when the catering market was targeted, it has grown to be one of the big three Stoke-on-Trent hotelware manufacturers.

The product range is only vitrified hotelware at present, but Churchill is thought to be introducing a china body product later this year. There are three body design shapes and around 50 standard patterns. The company guarantees that any new hotelware design will be produced for at least five years and not discontinued with less than five years' notice.

Churchill has a policy of holding all standard line products in stock for immediate delivery. Its warehouse holds around 2.5 million pieces of hotelware at any one time, and it will sell only through catering distributors.

Dudsons

Founded in 1768, the company is still owned by the Dudson family. It has made hotelware only for the past 100 years. Dudsons manufactures on two body materials: vitrified ware and a boneless china called Fine China. The vitrified has 10 body shapes and 200 design patterns, and Fine China has seven body styles and 55 standard design patterns.

Dudsons was the first company in Stoke-on-Trent to develop a bone china-like product for hotelware that does not use calcified bone. Fine China now accounts for 15% of Dudsons hotelware sales.

The company is looking at two specific areas of product development in the next few years. It anticipates a demand for lighter bodies than existing vitrified hotelware and is researching body formulae that will allow thinner hotelware with comparable strength. The company is also looking at glaze development to give greater resistance to dishwasher chemicals, heat and scratching.

Royal Doulton

Now a privately-owned company after a de-merger just over a year ago from the Pearson Group. Royal Doulton began potting in Stoke-on-Trent in 1855 under the ownership of Henry Doulton. It was granted a Royal Warrant by King Edward VII in 1901, and has a world-renowned name for quality built on the strength of the name in the domestic market.

The hotelware is made by the hotel and airline division, with airline tableware taking around 50% of the output. Royal Doulton is the main supplier to British Airways, for which a special range of high-quality, but lightweight, hotelware has been developed.

The company makes hotelware in two types of body material: fine bone china, which is a mixture of china clay and 50% calcified bone; and hotel porcelain, made from a mix of china clay and silica. Hotel porcelain is the big-selling part of Royal Doulton's hotelware and, like the fine bone china range, has rolled or reinforced edges to give better strength.

Steelite international

Steelite was a brand name of vitrified hotelware owned by Royal Doulton. In 1983 the name and hotelware business was sold by Royal Doulton into private local hands. The company only makes products for the catering industry only.

The vitrified body of Steelite was joined last year by a new material, Albalite, one of the new breed of body materials that seeks to offer the translucency and whiteness of bone china with the robustness of vitrified hotelware.

The company has one of the most modern factories in the world, with a £10m investment programme due for completion by midsummer. It has made a conscious step towards being service-driven rather than product-driven and has achieved BS5750 accreditation for its quality procedures. Last year it introduced computer-aided design facilities, among the most modern in the world, allowing personalised designs to be created instantly.

JH Weatherby

This is one of the oldest established family potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, able to trace its history back to 1726. Still family owned, it has been producing hotelware for 75 years. Its UK market is a mix of hotels and restaurants, but the company has a good foothold in the institutional and contract sector, with a range of whiteware.

Weatherby produces hotelware mostly as vitrified, but does a small amount of earthenware for markets that want it. It has a distinctive backstamp of a Union Flag with the word "durability" printed across it, which has been used for more than 100 years. There is one main body shape and seven patterns, but Weatherby is hoping to launch a new body shape and new patterns later this year.

The company has a strong market in Chinese restaurants, with a specific range called Eastern. The rice bowl in this range was the subject of some of the most extensive research Weatherby has ever undertaken, with the feel of the bowl as important as the design, since it is an item to be held in the hand.

Wedgwood

The best-known name in the world for pottery, Wedgwood is owned by Waterford Crystal. This year celebrates the death of founder Josiah Wedgwood 200 years ago.

The Wedgwood Hotel & Restaurant Division sells almost exclusively bone china, yet even this great house cannot escape the market demand for a non-bone china. In the near future Wedgwood will be launching a new body material made of china clay and ground stone that will be aimed at luxury hotels with informal dining areas, where the Wedgwood name is wanted but the cost of bone china cannot be justified.

There are four body designs and 20 standard patterns, though a third of Wedgwood's hotel and restaurant work is with bespoke patterns.

The company has recently won an order to produce a new dining service for the Kremlin, where the existing hammer and sickle motif is to be replaced.

The Wedgwood visitor centre just outside Stoke-on-Trent attracts more than 200,000 visitors a year, many of them from overseas.

Wood & Sons

Privately owned after a management buy-out in 1982, the company produces both domestic and hotelware. Best known in the catering industry as one of the main suppliers into healthcare, yet it also has a hotel and restaurant range of two bodies and 12 standard patterns. Woods produces only vitrified hotelware.

The company has taken steps to improve service and delivery times as a means of fending off competition from developing countries. Now averagesa seven-day delivery cycle. Has a minimum stocking period of 10 years for each pattern. Woods has a loyal customer base with 70% of hotelware sales as repeat business. It has a distributor-only policy for hotel and restaurant business.

The company is looking to introduce a new body shape in the near future which will be thinner, a trend Woods thinks will grow steadily in the next few years as caterers move away from the idea that hotelware must be bulky and last for many years. Beauty will begin to take over from functionality in hotelware.