Transcript: Episode 152: Missing Blanket of Snow
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 152. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/152.
[00:00:13] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. What started as a textile mill is now a suite of businesses across textiles, bedding, and other eco friendly materials. Piana Technology was originally founded in 1582 in Biella, Italy, and has survived for more than 400 years by evolving to match the needs of the moment. CEO Andrea Piana has turned his company's attention to bedding with an eye on disrupting the hospitality industry with an eco friendly mattress through Piana Sleep. Andrea is committed to sustainable innovation and a circular zero waste economy. So today, we're going to talk about that and a good night's sleep.
But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.
Call button rings
[00:01:30] Susan Barry: The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals and anyone else who has burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at 850 404 9630. Today's question was submitted by Chloe, and this is a perfect question for you, Andrea. She says, How do you ensure longevity in a family business? Well, a 400 year old company CEO might have some good ideas. What do you think?
[00:02:04] Andrea Piana: Thank you very much for this great opportunity of being of being here today. I think that the ensuring longevity is more a function of having the courage to lead with creativity, leading with imaginations. And fully comprehend how the world is evolving, is changing, uh, you know, legacy can be an incredible value proposition. It could be an incredible asset because of the supporting, or the overall support that is around you. It could be also constraints. It could be a almost a paralyzing type of sensations. However, if we define with absolute clarity our purpose and we embrace, with convictions, our values, then it's just a function of embracing with courage the future. And, and working constantly with great determinations and remaining very humble.
[00:03:24] Susan Barry: You make it sound so easy. It's definitely not easy. You're like, you know, just be humble. You'll be fine. I highly doubt that it is as easy as you make it look. My question for you is, have you - I know you've worked at this company for a very long time. Did you ever do anything else or has it always been the family business?
[00:03:47] Andrea Piana: Other than basic works when I was a teenager.
[00:03:51] Susan Barry: Like what?
[00:03:51] Andrea Piana: Working at like working at the bar serving table and, uh, organizing, uh, uh, event in nightclubs, uh, when I was around 17 years old.
[00:04:03] Susan Barry: Okay.
[00:04:04] Andrea Piana: Uh, I have no, I've not done any other and shop.
[00:04:08] Susan Barry: You have the seeds of hospitality in your past, and I think that explains one of the reasons why you've taken the company in the direction you have. So, the company started in Italy, obviously, but then you moved most of the operations to Cartersville, Georgia in around 1995. What drove that? Why there? Why then?
[00:04:36] Andrea Piana: So prior to 1995 we were exporting dyed fiber from Italy to the US to supply the traditional textile market. So the apparel and then… the issue that there was a quota imposed by the government that limited the volume of the material that we could deliver in the United States. And for this reason, we decided to open our first facility, our first manufacturing facility.
[00:05:06] Susan Barry: So you needed to be a U. S. based company in order to do the volume that you needed to do to work.
[00:05:13] Andrea Piana: That's correct. That's correct.
[00:05:14] Susan Barry: I see. I see. So you've been in this business for a really long time. When did you start to think about sustainability as it relates to the business? Like what led you to think about that?
[00:05:26] Andrea Piana: Hmm. Um, I think it's more a functions of explaining just a little bit our background. So I am I am originally from the Northwest of Italy from a small town called Biella. So we are surrounded by mountains. And and when I was younger I could literally ski within 20 minutes from my home and we literally live 90 minutes from the tallest mountains of Europe.That is the Mount Blanche. So I've been skiing since the age of four. And so the love for nature is always being a part of my upbringing. And I have always relied on nature to be able to, uh, as a mean to express myself, as the first opportunity to adventure into the unknown, into the wilderness.
So in my hometown, like, this immaculate blanket of snow was very common. Um, you know, for four months, for four months a year. So that was my reality on my upbringing. Now around the age of 20, um, I started to witness a progressive decrease of snow throughout the entire Europe. And so I was curious to find out what was happening. And I began to read the, the first article about the climate change cause by human activities. In this specific case was just referring just to the basic greenhouse gases emissions, in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, methane, uh, you know, the preventive from escaping back into space. I could not realize the level of extent of the dramatic consequences of global warming. However, to me, it was a defining moment in which I could see with clarity what I wanted to stand for. So my principle, what was important for me and how I wanted to live my life. So fast forward, you know, 30 years as an example is of today, there is no snow anymore in my hometown. And the level of snow in Europe decreased drastically. And that's why ski resorts right now, they're built starting from 7,500 feet and higher because there is no snow.
[00:08:06] Susan Barry: Wow. You know, I think it's really interesting for me to hear and for our audience to hear the very real and specific way that you saw this happen. It wasn't just reading articles, it wasn't just learning about it in school, it was physically with your eyeballs seeing there was snow here last year and there's no snow here to hear this year. That's, that's a pretty stark, uh, contrast.
[00:08:38] Andrea Piana: And you're absolutely right. You actually have to see first thing to make it your own. Implementing sustainability of circular designer into our business has never been based on an economical opportunity. It has always been based on an intrinsic conditions toward humanity. So I have I have never leverage sustainability as a form of benefit, as always being a commitment. Um, and also to be honest, when we implement the sustainability in our organization, nobody would care less. So it was so long ago that people, they would just laugh at us. So it's fine.
[00:09:21] Susan Barry: That's interesting. So it's been part of your DNA for 30 years.
[00:09:26] Andrea Piana: Yeah, that's correct.
[00:09:28] Susan Barry: Wow. So after working across several different vertical industries, including healthcare and automotive, you are focused now on piano sleep, your bedding division. Why is it a good time to make mattresses?
[00:09:49] Andrea Piana: That's a, that's a good question. Hopefully it is a good time, but the objective is that we focus on the health of the people and the health of the planet. We believe that bedding industry, as we know today, we'll experience drastic, drastic changes. You know, 50,000 mattresses each day are sent to the landfill taking taking hundreds
[00:10:15] Susan Barry: Each day?
[00:10:16] Andrea Piana: Each day.
[00:10:17] Susan Barry: Holy Mackerel.
[00:10:18] Andrea Piana: So taking hundreds of years to decompose and releasing harmful gases, polluting air and soil and water. So visualize that we’ve - all the mattresses dumped in a single day in the landfill. If we could form a stock, it would be taller than the Mount Everest every day, which is 29, 000 feet. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's quite significant, no?
[00:10:42] Susan Barry: Yikes.
[00:10:43] Andrea Piana: So we created an extremely - so our objective was to create an extremely comfortable bed with specific functionalities to improve human health, the quality of sleep, while protecting the planet from an ecological bankruptcy. That's what we are. And so we see our bad as, as a catalyst for sustainability for the bedding world. So we, the purpose is to make a dent, and the bedding industry can become beacons of sustainability for many other markets.
[00:11:24] Susan Barry: What is special about this mattress, Renovo? So this is the sustainable mattress. This is the thing. What's special about it that makes it more sustainable and less Mount Everest stack of dead mattresses?
[00:11:40] Andrea Piana: So we - it was clear for us that we couldn't just be a sustainable mattresses company because objectively we were able to combine a luxury comfort with specific of functionality. And we reduce the CO2 emission by 40 percentage and over 50 percentage of the energy to make this bed. The bed itself uses our vSmart technology that is up to 10 times more breathable than standard beds. Then we created a system of continuous airflow eliminating any type of moisture accumulation and a healthier and cooler night of sleep. Then our mattresses, they go through these specific molecule printing technology that we own, where we infuse relaxing - we call it pure calm molecules - that promote relaxations. Also our standard cool comfort technology to create the perfect cooler night of sleep. And all our beds, of course, they contain antimicrobial treatment, and they're all a hundred percent recyclable.
[00:13:05] Susan Barry: So first of all, what is a calming molecule? Is it like Valium just sprinkled in the bed?
[00:13:16] Andrea Piana: No, no, no. But there is molecules that you can apply, you know, it's basically the scent technology. So the receptor that you have in your nostrils, they're going to react to these molecules. And so the objective is to promote the relaxations and other molecules that we're going to print in the future of the other mattresses. So that's, that's what we stand for. That's what, that's what our Renovo is.
[00:13:43] Susan Barry: Wow. Okay. When you recycle the mattresses, what do they turn into? What do you, do you make recycle them into new mattresses or do they become other things?
[00:13:53] Andrea Piana: So it depends. So we are, we are opening our recycling facility. And when we recycle our bed, in this case, is there a novel model, we have made a decision that we're going to convert the beds into first fiber. And this fiber is going to be sanitized. Once it is sanitized, we're going to convert that, we're going to manufacturing into a 5 to 7 inches - let's call it small beds. And we're going to donate these beds. We're going to donate these beds to a nonprofit organization like homeless center or disaster release. So that's our commitment. That's our purpose statement. When it comes to other beds, meaning beds of other brands, we're going to disassemble them. We already identify potential buyer of every single components. Of course, if it is a component that we can reutilize it converted into donations, that's what we're going to do.
[00:14:57] Susan Barry: I want to ask something, but it's kind of gross, but
[00:15:00] Andrea Piana: Yes, please.
[00:15:01] Susan Barry: What happens to the skin cells that are in the mattress? You told me, I can't remember the number, but there's a certain pounds of dead skin in a mattress. Just talk about that.
[00:15:15] Andrea Piana: So I mean, nobody wants to talk about that. That's obvious.
[00:15:21] Susan Barry: But kind of I do.
[00:15:23] Andrea Piana: After five to, after five to six years, your beds weighs 40 percentage more.
[00:15:27] Susan Barry: Wow.
[00:15:29] Andrea Piana: And that's caused, that's caused by that skin, you know and other unwelcome, you know, components that we may find in every mattresses, in our mattresses, in a mattresses in hotel. Um, that's, that's the reality. So, the objective is to build or to create the mattresses that could really protect an individual from experiences that might… bad bugs, bacteria that are not always beneficial. Even if 85 percentage of the bacteria is beneficial, there is 50 percentage of them that are not very beneficial. So, yeah, it's a pretty, pretty unusual reality, mattresses.
[00:16:19] Susan Barry: But it's an important one that you're thinking about.
[00:16:22] Andrea Piana: Yeah. Absolutely. Um, you know, you don't want to think when you travel in many hotels, to be honest, it would be a problem.
[00:16:31] Susan Barry: We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with some really specific and tangible things they can try either in their personal lives or in their businesses. Piana Technologies is famous for non-woven fabric. So when I was doing research, I saw a lot of things about non-woven fabric and I was like touching my shirt and like looking around trying to figure out what that is. What is non- woven fabric and why is it better?
[00:17:07] Andrea Piana: So in our particular case, non-woven material fabric is a collective terms that we utilize as “non-woven” of material of fiber that is bonded together through a process, through a manufacturing process, exposed to heat. And in our specific case, we want to utilize the northern components to focus on the health of the people and health of the planet. We objectively start to think about an alternative to PU foam. And so we, we created these non-woven material that will be able to offer a very high level of air permeability, and with the same comfort level of foam.
However, we also wanted to visualize, can we can we be very unique in our process? Can we be sustainable? Meaning every single process and every single product is patented and has to be aligned with the pillars of sustainability and circular design that we implemented. So you know, the objective was to create an alternative to PU foam. That is a product that is everywhere. So…
[00:18:36] Susan Barry: Okay, so I think I get it. I'm going to say it back to you and you tell me if I got this right. So you're taking fibers and fusing them together using, uh, not a weaving process, which is more sustainable. And then the end product of that replaces foam in something like an office chair or your car seat or that kind of stuff. Is that close?
[00:19:03] Andrea Piana: Yeah, yeah, that's correct. That's absolutely correct because our VSmart technology is created utilizing - is made by 70 percent of the recycle material. It is 50 percentage lighter than PU foam. And, uh, and it's 10 times more breathable. So the objective is to replace foam in everywhere. So mattresses, seats, car seats, airplane. So you're, you're perfectly correct.
[00:19:33] Susan Barry: Excellent. I'll be giving you a course after we complete this recording, I'm going to shift gears dramatically. I have to imagine that a company that's more than 440 years old has some traditions or had some ways of thinking when you got there that felt old fashioned or were hard to change. And we address this a little bit with the emergency call button question, but I'm curious what advice you would give someone who wants to change a very entrenched company culture? A lot of our listeners are in the hotel business, the restaurant business, businesses that rely a lot on tradition and are not always seen as the most say, technology forward, for example. So I'm curious if you've got advice for folks in entrenched cultures about how to make change that doesn't just mean like hit somebody over the head with a ski, you know?
[00:20:40] Andrea Piana: Yes. So I think we have to distinguish between entrenched culture that has been established by prior generations versus our personal entrenched cultures. My personal observation is that you have to be able to take your time and define what is important for you, what you stand for. So really defining your personal purpose, not as an intellectual exercise. More as a, as a life commitment. Capability to adapt to changes has to be based on your willingness to collaborate with others.
Never assume anything. And be open enough and be receptive enough to value inputs that can come from anybody independently by their age, independently by their educational, et cetera, et cetera. I was I just came back from the Czech Republic where I was invited at the Aspen youth fellowship program. And it was 60 people, 60 young entrepreneur that came from all over the world from the age of 17 to the age of 25. It was a wonderful and humbling learning experience for me in the way they interact with the technology, in the way that they define their principle. They're very idealistic, and it was very, very refreshing.
Yes, I am entrenched into my values. However, I was exposed to how the world is perceived by youth, by people that they're going to be responsible to change the world. I truly believe that we have to be open. We have to be attentive. We have to be receptive.We have to focus really on - we have to take the time to think as well. You know, it's not always about execution. It's not always about being busy. It's always about creating a space to, to think and to feel. And the reality that the world is going to dictate changes if you want to, if you don't want. I mean, there is progress is going to be dictated by independently by your willingness to adapt or not to adapt to the evolutions of humanity. I don't know if I answer you. I don't know if I was able to give some level of suggestions to anybody.
[00:23:28] Susan Barry: Absolutely. I love that you said creating space to think because it feels like… I think about this all the time with people who work in big corporations and their calendar is free for anyone to book in any time. Like how do they ever think of new ideas if every single time slot is slam packed? It's crazy to me. I have at one day per week, that is no meetings, no matter what, because otherwise what am I doing in this business except for doing the same thing over and over again and getting nowhere.
[00:24:08] Andrea Piana: That's true.
[00:24:09] Susan Barry: Philosophically, fully agree with you. Alright, we've reached the fortune telling portion of the show. So now you have to predict the future and we'll see if you were right. What is a prediction that you have about hotels?
[00:24:23] Andrea Piana: You know, I think that hotels overrode a great opportunity to become leaders of change. From the sustainability for perspective, I believe that they will have to offer, let's say, full transparency to what they're doing to protect the health of the environment. Um, generation Z and Alpha that they are going to have a strong convictions toward their ideas. And, and they will judge the interlocutors and they will judge corporations because they are technologically savvy. So I think that's a great opportunity for hospitality. From the technological side, I believe that additional personalizations of experiences is going to be critical and the mandatory value offering from hotel. Ideally we have to envision that a customer will leave, say hotels that, being happier being healthier, being more rested than before. I know there are obvious statements, but that's what I sense.
[00:25:54] Susan Barry: Well, I think it's true because when people think about leaving a hotel more rested, they only think about it when they're on vacation and not when they're traveling for business. And I think that's where the white space is. How can hotels make a business trip feel, give you the feeling when you leave, like you've been on vacation. They’ve already went on sleep because it's freezing cold and nice and dark in there. So now it's time to make the mattress, have some calming molecules sprinkled around!
[00:26:24] Andrea Piana: That's correct.
[00:26:25] Susan Barry: Okay. If you could wave a magic wand and create a product or service for the hospitality industry, it doesn't have to be realistic besides your mattress. What would it be?
[00:26:39] Andrea Piana: Beside the mattress? Um, It's difficult for me because I mean, actually I travel a lot. So I would love to have a room where in four hours, I can repair body tissue, synthesize protein, release growth hormones, improve my cognitive functionalities, reduce risk of, uh, I don't know, heart diseases, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:27:17] Susan Barry: You want to check into a hospital as well,
[00:27:19] Andrea Piana: But do that in accelerated, uh, mode. You know, so it's a room of restores and that's what I would love to see because it would be great opportunity. And make it accessible, of course, because it's pretty expensive.
[00:27:37] Susan Barry: This is the kind of imagination that our industry is missing right now. I will tell you that. What is next for you and what's next for your company?
[00:27:46] Andrea Piana: I think for me is first of all, I love innovations. Most important, I would love to be a catalyst for youth to pursue bold and project. You know, we want to be part of history. We have to lead with the courage. And I truly believe that the impossible is possible. We have to dare. And so hopefully as a, as an individual, as a human being, I can serve the community in that way. To be a means, to be used, and to be utilized. For the company, I think we have a couple of projects that are fairly important, that they are transformational and disruptive. Um, I can maybe talk about one, which is, really it's textile and biomarkers. And the possibility to detect degenerative diseases by also democratizing the cost of this detection system. So
[00:29:10] Susan Barry: Oh, wow.
[00:29:10] Andrea Piana: So that's what we're embracing into. The other project, I can not talk about.
[00:29:15] Susan Barry: Not yet. You'll have to come back and tell us about that. Okay, folks, before we tell Andrea goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Andrea, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:30:14] Susan Barry: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, folks, before we tell Ali goodbye, we are going to head down to our favorite place, the loading dock, where the very best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
Andrea, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:29:37] Andrea Piana: Related to business, um, Yeah. So in 1999, between 99 and the year 2000, trying to enter into the WTO. 95 percentage of the traditional textile business disappeared within six months. And I remember that I received communications from our customers where they were informing us that between 75 to 85 percentage of our business within six months would completely be gone.
[00:30:21] Susan Barry: Oh, wow.
[00:30:22] Andrea Piana: And so it was a, an interesting reality check. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by my family, who they were supportive and they allowed they allow me and allowed the organization to embrace innovations and and sustainability. But it was… almost a shock. It was so impersonal, that it force you to survive, force you to be stronger and to be resilient. So…
[00:31:05] Susan Barry: That makes a lot of sense. Andrea Piana, thank you so much for being here. I know that our listeners got good ideas and great inspiration and I appreciate you writing up to the top floor. My
[00:31:18] Andrea Piana: Thank you so much for everything. I appreciate it, and you have a great day.
[00:33:41] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/152. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. And your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:37:27] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.