Stowlin Croftshaw, Radnor Road, South Wigston, Leicester, England LE18 4XY
Tel: 0116 278 5373
Fax: 0116 277 2616
Email: sales@stowlin.com
The Stowlin Croftshaw group has well over 75 years combined experience supplying high quality innovative cleaning solutions, processes and basic chemicals. From our base in Leicester, we are well positioned to serve the whole of the UK with our wide range of products.
In the video here, from 2009, Director Tony Howell talks about the advantages which Stowlin Croftshaw can offer you. We are committed to the responsible and ethical management of our products and combined with our unrivalled technical expertise, this make us the supplier of choice for hundreds of organisations of all sizes. As well as offering a wide variety of commodity chemicals and solvents, we also supply speciality cleaning products such as Cool-Phos® and Vaposol®. In addition, we are distributors for world-class brands such as Petroferm, Henkel and Mykal. We can offer a wide range of ancillary services such as contract blending and packing, controlled waste disposal, tank and equipment installation, and also have on-site demonstration facilities. Our team of dedicated Technical Service Engineers are on hand to advise you on any aspect of your requirements.
“We do genuinely look after our customer base very carefully”
Transcript of the interview with Director Tony Howell (above)
“Integrity is a word I keep very high on my agenda, and I joined the business 6 years ago knowing that the business and the owners had a similar integrity. After 37 years’ trading, we are a small company, but we care enough for any size of business that wants to trade with us – old fashioned values, however they work; we do genuinely look after our customer base very carefully.
“We’ve got over 1000 customers in the UK and we do a small percentage of export to places such as Spain, India and other parts of the world. It’s a small amount of business at the moment but obviously an area we’re trying to grow.
“Stowlin as a business model is mainly two sectors structurally: Stowlin as commodity chemistry, inorganic molecules, and Croftshaw, which is taking us into more sophisticated areas: F1, aerospace, medical, to name a few. In terms of the model we have here, we’re going out into several areas of sales, so we can do general pool chemistry where we carry a range of Henkel products, we’re an agent for Mykal citrus base products, also we get involved in machinery as well.
“The site is a licensed waste site, so we are allowed to bring back chlorinated waste and we are also allowed to carry waste on our lorries as a third party from our customer base to an approved waste site in the Midlands. Other things we do as a business include manufacturing some high level products like Coolphos, which is a degreaser-phosphater all-in-one process. Vaposol is a degreasing methylene chloride, a very stable product that can be used in lots of applications as a replacement for trichloroethylene in the marketplace. Also Stowlin as a business manufactures janitorials – we try to service local business with that.
“Internally we have a chemist, and also people who cover the office in terms of process and administration and any technical queries. Externally I have a sales team that actually look after customers technically and find a solution for their needs. It isn’t about us pushing a chemical onto a customer, it’s actually about us listening to what they are doing in terms of a process and then finding the right molecule to clean for the process.
“At the recent Surface World exhibition we had a stand on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and we had quite a variety of people coming to that stand from all walks of life – helicopter companies, vacuum cleaner companies, medical companies, general engineering companies, all looking for new alternatives in terms of solutions.
“We’re currently involved with some major companies – Petroferm is a key one we’ve taken on recently; we’re having a lot of success with that product, it’s going into high end engineering areas, also aerospace. We’re very proud to tell customers we have CFM, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Bombardier; many approvals that take us into the marketplace, again offering a solution to the customer. It’s all about trying to solve customers’ needs. No need for hard sell in these situations, it’s about evaluating the plant, the process and finding the right molecule to clean.
“I think geographically, Stowlin is ideally located, being just off J21 of the M1, smack in the Midlands so I think we’ve got a great network there to offer the UK. In terms of the benefits as a business, in terms of size, I think to be honest, customers today seem to be looking for good customer service. Brand names are important, there’s no doubt about it, but customers are interested in honest supply routes who can actually supply, on time, a quality product.
“The growth is good because I think despite the UK being a very difficult manufacturing position now, we’re still small enough to pick up business and where our big counterparts in terms of distribution sometimes can make a poor job of it in terms of service and not looking after the customer, we fit in very nicely and the team we have on board makes sure we give every customer 100%.”
Stowlin Croftshaw, Radnor Road, South Wigston, Leicester, England LE18 4XY
Tel: 0116 278 5373 Fax: 0116 277 2616
Email: sales@stowlin.com
Stowlin Ltd – Registered in England No.1081032 V.A.T. Reg No. 115 1531 16
Croftshaw (Solvents) Ltd – Registered in England No. 698307 V.A.T. Reg No. 205 3999 52
Registered Office: West Walk Building, 110 Regent Rd, Leicester LE1 7LT
