SELF & CONSTANTLY. By Harald Schume
The "Wiener Journal" regularly goes in search of work and listens to extraordinary people who have taken the plunge into self-employment. Today: Thomas Kreuz produces pepper mills. He always has one in his pocket. Because the "unhealthy sneezing powder" in restaurants gets on his nerves.
Dried pig ears? Teething baskets? Squeaky plush giraffes? Although Thomas Kreuz' store, which only looks like a superficially swept-up workshop at first glance, is called "WauWau," it has nothing to do with dog accessories. "It had to be a short name that every child remembers," says the 45-year-old, "one that sounds Austrian. And the Internet domain had to be free.
"Pepper mills are produced by the trained goldsmith, who studied at the Applied Product Design after his apprenticeship. "Every semester we had to devote ourselves to one focus. The professor said, 'Do it your way!' so I tinkered with a porcelain pepper mill that sold very well," Kreuz says. "I thought to myself, 'Aha, this product is interesting!' And then I switched to wood. With this material, it's easier to adapt things, and it's less expensive."
In 2009, he opened the store on the corner of Westbahnstraße and Hermanngasse in the 7th district. Turning takes place in Haugsdorf in Lower Austria. "I make a model, change and tinker until I think it might fit. If a mill finally works, I produce a small series, a maximum of fifteen pieces. If it's well received, I sometimes change little things, and then it goes into series production," says Kreuz, who installs the grinder in Vienna. It is manufactured in Switzerland by a family business. The special feature is that the grind can be adjusted on the underside of the mill, not on the head as with conventional ones, which inevitably leads to it being permanently adjusted by the rotary movement.
"A grinder is very simple, but elaborate," says the master, "a small precision device. It's made of hardened stainless steel and cuts the grains." Contrast that with the chili grinder for his mills, which Wiener developed. "Chili is more oily than pepper and is torn, not ground. That's how flakes are produced." Like a knighthood, the Swiss asked if they could produce the chili grinder under license. - They are allowed. The bestsellers are made of walnut wood, oiled and 25 cm high. Oak, beech, ash, cherry are also popular. And special designs.
"Customers come in with a piece of their favorite tree and want me to make a pepper mill out of it," Kreuz says. But, "The art of drying is difficult. And the wood can't have any cracks." The product designer is particularly proud of his unique aluminum travel pepper mill, which he launched a year ago: only 7 centimeters high, with a diameter of 4.5 centimeters and a screw-down base. There are actually people who take their pepper mill to the restaurant. At least 30, because that's how many have been sold, even as far away as New York. "I always have mine with me," Kreuz says, "I use organic pepper because the commercial one has an incredible amount of clump in it. I got annoyed every time I had to use that sneezing powder in the pub."
The travel chili mill costs 135 euros, which is medium-priced at "WauWau". It starts at 52 euros, the most expensive pieces come to 368 euros. But. . . But they have it in themselves, outwardly. Stoyan Dobrev is the name of the man who paints them. For tourists, there's Mozart on them, or the Ferris wheel, which doesn't sound much like art, but it's not. But those pepper mills with werewolf, Moby Dick, Dracula or Adam & Eve shortly before the Fall are a small sensation.
"At the beginning, I still asked: Who should buy something like that?" says Kreuz, "now it's hard to imagine the range without the pieces." Unlike the meter-long monsters used by waiters in so-called good restaurants to keep their distance from diners. "Those pepper mills are totally out of fashion," Kreuz says. "People have moved to putting one on every table." Knowing that shrinkage is to be expected because many a guest... But that's a malicious insinuation. Experience shows that customers are between 35 and 50 years old. What surprises the landlord, in his realm of unplastered walls: that even conservative people dare to come in. "But they are also those who value quality." A pepper mill has to work well. And it has to work for a long time.
