Trolley brake inventor to wheel in the money

Andrew Gray with his invention Picture: Mike Tipping

Already Andrew Gray is beginning to enjoy the fruits of an invention for which supermarket chains throughout Britain and the world are now clamouring - he lives with his wife and two small children in a magnificent five-bedroom house in Copmanthorpe and shyly reckons that within two years he will be a millionaire.

Andrew's Radlok, which is revolutionising supermarket security by preventing the industry's £12 million losses through theft and destruction of trolleys, is now being considered for a Millennium design award.

A spokesperson for the Design Council of Great Britain said: "We will assess his invention next month as a possibility for inclusion in the Millennium Dome exhibition."

The Radloks, which took seven years to perfect, are fitted on two opposite corner wheels. By a secret process, when the trolley reaches the supermarket boundary, a spring-loaded drag brake operates and the trolley becomes impossible to manoeuvre.

Through his company Gray Matter, the 39-year-old former pupil of St Peter's School, York, is consultant to his licensed manufacturing and sales company, Radford Retail Systems, of Milton Keynes.

They have made and fitted a third of a million Radloks to 235 stores, 200 in the UK and the remainder in Toronto, Hong Kong and Europe. He is poised to take orders from dozens more.

Many supermarket chains prefer his security method to deposit locks, which some in the industry regard as "negative retailing".

Andrew explains: "Faffing about for a coin doesn't tend to put you into a good shopping mood."

He said: "At the moment, turnover is around £1.5 million but potential sales of the devices alone could be as much as £7 million, and the entire package of fitting Radloks and making them effective could be worth sales of between £11 million and £12 million."

The device has already generated 25 jobs.

Inventor puts brakes on the trolley thieves

RON GODFREY meets the York man who has invented a device to stop more than two million supermarket trolley thefts in their tracks... and make himself a millionaire into the bargain

Check it out: Andrew Gray with the magic wheel which prevents shopping trolleys being taken away

For the moment Copmanthorpe's Andrew Gray remains a one gadget inventor, but wow, what a money-spinner. In two years the Radlok, that scourge of supermarket trolley thieves and triumph for every conservationist who ever dredged one from a pond or canal, is set to make Andrew a millionaire.

He first dreamed up the idea of a device that could spare the supermarket industry of some £12 million worth of losses in the garage of a house in Copmanthorpe where the central heating would occasionally break down.

Now he, his wife, Rachel and two small children live in a five-bedroom luxury house in a better part of town, a home dubbed The Point (in case you've missed it).

But once you know that his secret mechanical process foils trolley thieves by sensing the perimeter of supermarket land and stabbing a brake into the ground what more is there to fascinate?

Once you know that the device has a potential turnover of up to £12 million a year in the next two years what more calculations are there to do?

Once you know that a third of a million of the things have been fitted to supermarket trolleys at 235 stores, 200 of them in Britain, with a growing wellspring of excitement speeding up production by licensed company Radford Retail Systems of Milton Keynes, what more is there to excite?

Answer: Plenty.

The fact that supermarket trolleys are now more secure, thanks to him, means that other on-their-trolley rather than off-their-trolley inventors can give scope to their imagination and ask him along for the ride.

Until now, it simply wasn't worth embellishing supermarket trolleys with added extras like calculators or even price-swipe barcode recognition systems to pay-as-you-shop when there was a danger of them ending up in a local lake.

Until the Radlok the economics of trolley losses was horrendous. To buy one costs around £65. If it has had to be recovered by a member of the supermarket staff, its value leaps to £75.

And under the Environment Act, 1991, local authorities can now fine supermarkets £30 for each of the trolleys it recovers, bringing the value to more than £100 each.

With around 2.25 million missing and damaged trolleys yearly reported in Britain, that represents a lot of cash and little hope for using trolleys as a vehicle for other good ideas... Now the ideas are rampant, but more of this later.

Actually Andrew didn't set out to make a Radlok. He was more interested in the idea of a high tech trolley which you could steer through a price recognition system without emptying the goods on to a conveyor.

Because some supermarkets lost or had stolen around 400 trolleys a year, that idea wasn't viable. But, eureka! What about a device to stop the thefts and vandalism? he asked himself. This is how the Radlok was conceived.

So how does someone become a full-time inventor? "Just like that," says this former St Peter's schoolboy who, by his own admission, was never a great academic.

He became managing director of his family retail motor trade business, Fosselius Ltd in Blossom Street, York, but went into voluntary liquidation.

For two years he worked for an advertising agency and then his grandfather died and left him a small fortune. "Let's say it was less than £100,000," he says.

He decided - just like that - to become an inventor. He knew nothing about inventing. It was trial and error, but he set up Gray Matter, his inventions company. And began tinkering.

His first efforts - modifying old cigarette vending machines into dispensers of nappies, postcards, games and puzzles - were merely novel ideas.

But then came his newspaper vending machine which dispenses one paper at a time. He patented it, and even licensed it to Glenwyd plc, the big Midland engineering group, but it never took off.

"Over-engineered for something that only produced an article costing 40p or 50p," he explains.

More interesting was his "proactive road hump" which can be deactivated (and flattened) by emergency vehicles and only operates when vehicles pass over it at a pre-set speed. "Couldn't get the highways authorities interested but come to think of it it's worth another go."

But the trolley wheels, though a brilliant idea, did not immediately attract the attention of the big supermarkets. Now he is able to demonstrate how a £24,500 installation of Radloks in one supermarket was recouped in little more than five months of operation.

And with those new inventions by others on stream, relying on his Radloks, the potential is breathtaking.

One German engineering firm has already entered into discussions with him. "They have invented the talking supermarket trolley. It tells you, for instance: 'On your left you'll see a special offer on beans today'. Or 'you are approaching the meat counter at the end of this aisle. Look out for the rump steak discount...'

"And because it needs to be slowed down to work properly, it may just tell you: 'There is a free sweetie for you hidden behind the ketchup display..." The Radlok makes it all possible.

On the other hand, he admits, the Radlok cannot prevent talking trolleys from being hurled across supermarkets...

see COMMENT 'Trolley good idea'

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