people against dirty

it takes a village

Michael and Brian flew from the US to help us ramp up our manufacturing in the UK (which helps our environmental profile and supply chain flexibility). They scuttled around the entire British realm with Nicole and Phil last week by train and Phil’s ’93 Volkswagen Polo.

It is important UK regulation that you must wear silly hats when touring a manufacturing facility (REG 47682: Silly Hat Usage).

Making the world smell like grapefruit, one pallet at a time:

random acts of method

We properly introduced ourselves to our local Richmond neighborhood this week with a sampling event down the road. We had to bring our own sampling table, so took the opportunity for a little method parade. Note Phil’s holster.

Double-decker busses sure get dirty. And we’re against that.

in order to fight “dirty”, you have to know “dirty”

We’ve learned that Phil’s college nickname was “Philthy” (somewhat ironic at a cleaning company). The following image is Exhibit A, taken of Phil’s desk drawer (and apparently a spare clothing hamper).

hawking and busking

Nothing beats actually getting in front of people and hawking our wares. David and I took the opportunity of a sampling event on Friday to relive the early days of method (see photo below). Here is David in the store proving he was separated at birth from founder Eric (shown circa 2000 in San Francisco).

jetlagged guest of the week

We met a weary but upbeat Michael fresh from the plane in our lobby this morning. Brian is arriving later this week. Both are have been key at getting method products to stores on time for our launch.  They also help keep Phil and Nicole in line (we need all the help we can get).

being resourceful

David hit a major milestone this week by learning how to change the toner on our printer. At his last company, David had an entire team of people to do this for him (one to open the package, one to lift the lid, etc.), so this is a big deal indeed.

A family affair

We had a little extra help in Friday’s sampling event. Martha proved herself a very persuasive sales lady and Charlotte proved herself capable of making all sorts of messes that are good for demonstration.

our friends at innocent

David, Phil, and I dropped by Fruit Towers this week and spent some time with Dan. He had some good pearls of wisdom for getting started in the UK.

This shot was taken soon after I learned that my new method shirt ("there's a party in my pants, and toxins aren't invited") has a slightly different meaning in the UK, as "pants" literally means "underwear", not “trousers”. I received some strange looks on the tube ride home.

Here is Phil trying to hotwire a grassy delivery truck.

welcoming Nicole

We’re thrilled to welcome Nicole to our merry little office as a supply planner (doctor of plan-it-ology). She is natively from South Africa, so we now have an eclectic mix of the English tongue in the UK office (with Phil's Australian twang, David's Queen's English, and my own American). When Alastair comes to visit with his Scottish, none of us will be able to understand each other.

first production

We hit a major milestone on Monday, with our first label production run the UK. This is a nice step toward increased manufacturing in the UK. We are already making hand wash here, and will soon move to the other bottles in our line.  Here's Phil, proving that he does do windows.

Here are Francis and Julian, the very nice people from Abbey labels, demonstrating their printing prowess.

Dr. Phil looking at our prognosis. Our creative director Stef instructed us to make sure that the labels "looked happy".