Gareth Roberts from Salons Direct talks about Recycle My Salon with Marc Carey

[Marc Carey]

Very pleased to say I have Gareth Roberts with me today from salons direct. Welcome, Gareth.

[Gareth Roberts]

Thanks Mark. Nice to speak to you and nice to meet you.

[MC]

Good to speak to you, how are you doing? So Salons Direct, I understand that this is going to be its 30th anniversary coming up. Is that right?

[GR]

It certainly is. Well we're sort of a week after it now. I think it was the 20 something of June. Yeah, it's quite a milestone for us.

[MC]

That really is. You've seen some changes in the industry so it's good that we're talking to you about this next change, I guess.

[GR]

Yeah. I mean there are a lot of companies and people that have similar stories and have been in it for a long time which is quite nice, we all get on together in the industry which is a nice thing for everybody.

[MC]

So just for our listeners quick, give them a little bit of a rundown on Salons Direct. It started out as a mail order company and then moved online. What's that been like building the business in that way?

[GR]

Well, it's a quaint little story. My wife and I had an idea that we would like to do mail order but I didn't know what to mail order or who to mail order and then we suddenly thought about hairdressers and hair salons. They all need products and equipment and we know where they are so we can have a catalogue mailed to them and hopefully they would buy from us, which 30 years later they're still doing. So we started from home, packing parcels on our kitchen table just the two of us, we had stock in the garage, bedrooms and dining room. Our kids would come home from school and the whole place was just full of orders waiting to go out. So it's quite a journey we've come on, we now have a 75,000 square feet warehouse and employ over 100 people, so there was a bit of change in those 30 years.

[MC]

That's a brilliant success story. In the UK we love those kinds of stories, don't we? Because there's often that very British thing about starting out with nothing and then pushing your way forward. More so than the Americans who do it in a way where they sort of extend the virtues of entrepreneurship but in the UK we're a little bit more behind the curve. I love those stories where it's a family that's worked hard, and like you said the business was on the table and now here we are employing 100 people.

[GR]

The nice thing is that those kids that came home from school are now working in the business and are our directors, and one of their husbands works with us as well. You know, we've kept it a family business all that time which is quite nice. And I understand what you were saying about in America, the "garage start-ups" I think is what they call them, like with Amazon.

[MC]

Yes. Well, thank you for popping on today and chatting to us about this Recycle My Salon scheme. So how did you first hear about the scheme?

[GR]

It was possibly somebody from the Hairdresser's Journal who had mentioned it to me in the past. Funnily enough it's something that we had thought about for quite a while actually because we sell an enormous amount of foil and I always used to think what happened to that foil you know, but unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get on to what the Recycle My Salon scheme has done. But the scheme is great and is perfect for it.

[MC]

Yeah, I guess you've answered my second question there because I was going to ask you, were you already looking at sustainability or thinking about how you're impacting the environment? You've already mentioned that you were, so had you already started to make moves in thinking about how you could work more sustainably or is this the first thing that you engaged with?

[GR]

No, I mean, we generate a lot of waste in our business having the turn over we do in one building. It's not like we have branches all over so we deal with it in different ways but we generate a lot of waste, whether it's pallets, cardboard, or whatever else. So, we've had compactors and things like this for our waste for quite a long time but in terms of recycling of what we're selling, specifically the foil, we were never doing anything about that. Like I said before, it was something that had crossed my mind several times of how we could do it. I suppose what I'm really surprised about is the amount that the salons are prepared to pay to get that foil recycled, I'm really pleased about that.

[MC]

Yeah, I must say with some of the discussions I've had with fellow contributors to the scheme there seemed to be a misunderstanding that foils and tubes were being recycled anyway and people not realising that they needed to be treated in a certain way to be recycled. So I think it's been a bit of an education process for the industry.

[GR]

Yeah, I agree.

[GR]

I was gonna say as well, I mean obviously you've been in the business a long time, you and your family, and you've built a great environment for all of your team. Is this one of the times when you've seen the industry coming together?

[GR]

I suppose it is yeah. I mean it's early days, we only started the scheme a few weeks ago so we haven't really got a handle on it at the moment but we have a huge social media presence and about 130,000 followers on Instagram and even more on Facebook so I think there's a lot more we can do for this. I think it definitely will be the biggest thing that we've all done together, I can't think of anything else like this in the industry. It's quite a close knit community, salons are friendly with each other and people pass from one salon to another making friends and things. I think in the industry, whether it's wholesale or manufacturing, it is quite unique in that people are friends and will help one another out but I can't remember anything other than this particular scheme bringing us all together for that end goal that we're looking for.

Bromborough Superstore of Salons Direct

[MC]

I guess it's another great example where I mean, obviously we're talking today specifically about the hair industry, but I think we are seeing the kind of "green matters" social enterprises that are coming forward in terms of dealing with diversity in the workplace and social injustices etc. I feel like over the last couple of years there's been a bit of a move towards more environmental and social reactions across industries. Before, pre- COVID, it was just about trying to keep the business going and maintaining those relationships, whereas now there are some big issues that we need to come together for. I think it's great that we've seen this in the hair industry and as you say, well maybe people in other industries might have a different view on this, but maybe the reason it's started so well is because of that point you raised about this close knit community.

[GR]

Yeah you're right, people have become a lot more aware whatever industry they're in. In some ways this is a fairly simple scheme to roll out and there isn't much the hairdresser has to do to get involved in this. I think, as you've said in one of your questions, the biggest USP about the scheme is that it's easy to take part in, it's simple, effortless and trouble free. We don't have an excuse not to do it, apart from the finance side of things. They've got to put their products somewhere and whether it's in a bin or in a box it doesn't make any difference to them.

[MC]

There's bound to be scales of economy as the scheme rolls out. I'd also say, I don't know what your view is on this, but there are costs involved, surely there's an opportunity here to use that. You've already mentioned social media, so maybe using it from your own perspective for additional marketing benefits and maybe get a return there.

[GR]

Yeah, I think every now and then. Dave, the new CEO, will probably have more views on this going forward but I think all opportunities like this, whether it's recycling our cardboard or helping salons to recycle the products that they've been using, all of that is an opportunity for PR. If you go back to the costs involved, the salon can actually use that as PR and they can put up their prices for colour treatments with foils by 50p to help recycle. I'm pretty sure most users of that salon would not complain, especially if they're paying £40, £50 or £60 pounds for a colour treatment. Then salons can show that this is what they're doing to help, with the treatments that they give they can tell their customers that they were able to send all that foil back to be recycled and I'm sure their customers will feel good about that.

[MC]

Well I think 70% of all the aluminium that's ever been produced is still in the cycle, so it just proves that it can be done. So with that remaining 30% that's out there it's not that far for us to get to 100% recycling with aluminium. I guess as a business owner and employer and you've already mentioned that you've got a new CEO starting, this Recycle My Salon scheme it's a nice line in the sand as well, isn't it? Coming back to your point about good news stories, we need some of those now don't we?

[GR]

Yeah salons have definitely felt the pinch, they were forced to close for several months and then they were sort of half closed by the fact that people were still worried to go visit them. So they definitely needed some good news and this is it.

[MC]

Gareth, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today about Recycle My Salon. Just before we go give the listeners a quick reminder of yourself and your business and just a little bit about what you've been up to and where they can find out more about you.

[GR]

Yeah, my name is Gareth Roberts and I'm the owner and founder of Salons Direct. We're very pleased to be involved with the Recycle My Salon scheme and if anyone would like to get involved in it you can go to our website, which is https://www.salonsdirect.com. We've got 1000s and 1000s of product for you to buy but also you can take part in the scheme and hopefully we can get some more aluminium recycled. Thanks very much.

[MC]

Brilliant. Thanks Gareth, I really appreciate your time today.