Mercury Thermastone range cooker 2006

Being able to envisage what that new product should be is not simply a matter of inspiration. In the case of Mercury Appliances, the Lincoln-based consumer product kitchen appliances brand, we were present at that very first stage of proceedings, demonstrating both a client culture, which truly embraces the transformative power of design, and a level of trust that sees the very premise of NPD (new product development) as a fusion of business insight, market opportunity, engineering realities and design possibilities – right from the outset.

"We consider David Fisher and his team as almost an extension of our own workforce, rather than a distant outside agency."
Jenny Hyatt, Managing Director, Mercury

The result of that first meeting led to the launch of Thermastone, a radical, heat store range cooker, which dared to break into the highly monopolized heat store market, where the 'Aga' had long reigned supreme. Thermastone broke with tradition in this highly-specialised market sector, with innovations such as the use of silicon carbide in a domestic product (for the oven cavities); compatibility with gastronorm container systems; gas hob cooking for all-year-round usage (not just in the depths of winter!) and seriously contemporary styling, including radical (and patented) twist-grip controls, winning the cooker both the GOLD award in Appliance Design’s 'Excellence in Design' Awards in the USA and the Manufacturer’s Award at the UK’s kitchen and bathroom DESIGNER Awards.

Creating a circle of trust
When Mercury sat down with Seymourpowell, the relationship between the two companies was founded on the highly successful first range of products, designed by Seymourpowell, with which Mercury had launched as a new brand in the market.

Seymourpowell has worked with Mercury since 1999, when we won a competitive pitch to design Mercury’s first ever consumer product. The company had just been formed at that point, as a new consumer-focused operation under the umbrella ownership of leading commercial catering equipment manufacturing group, Lincat Group plc. The two companies formed a very close working allegiance and, in 2000, launched the first result of their working partnership – the RC1090 – at Birmingham’s KBB show. This minimalist range cooker ('unapologetically simple' according to Seymourpowell director David Fisher) proved to be a brilliant commercial success, with sales still building, year upon year and yet to reach their peak.

As as result of the early NPD meetings, Lincat Group plc's CEO, Paul Bouscarle, Managing Director Jenny Hyatt and Mercury's Chief Engineer Mark Francis drew up a specification for a highly contemporary heat store appliance. Seymourpowell then developed the brief to produce a range of concepts and the final selected design was called Thermastone, referencing the innovative use of new materials in the proposed product. Thermastone boasted not only highly contemporary styling but also a number of radical improvements over more traditional products in the marketplace.

A worthy contender to take to market
The very definition of heat store products means that they are always on: a source of continual heat as well as serving as a cooking facility. As a heat store oven, the Thermastone has the traditional four cavities, of which two are heated by an electrical element and thermostat and two are heated from the residual heat generated in the process. Inside the cavities, tradition stops. Whereas cast iron is the norm in the marketplace, the Thermastone uses silicon carbide (or Carborundum, as it is known in the grindstone industry) for the two convection-heated cavities, which is not only exceptionally hard, but also has twice the heat store characteristics of cast iron, being used more normally in industrial kilns. The maximum temperature sustained by the cavities is so high that it is yet to be established exactly.

When it came to the hob, the design includes two dual-ring gas burners and a solid surface electric hotplate, all powered separately from the ovens, meaning the product can be used all year long, rather than being turned off over the Summer months, as with traditional heat-store cookers. The hob is controlled by minimalist 'no-control controls' in the form of a twistable rail, just like a motorbike throttle, which Mercury has now patented. The seamless interface buries the controls within the oven's functionality.

Unlike anything else in this marketplace – or indeed in any domestic marketplace - the oven is also built around a gastronorm container system, which is the industrial catering standard for serving and oven trays, which means that existing product ranges (from stainless steel trays to ceramics) are all instantly available and compatible to users of the oven.