Made in East Ayrshire - Kays of Scotland

[0:06]This company is K of Scotland. We've been in business for about 150 years. And their main objective is making curling stones. All the material we use comes from the wonderful island of Craig, about 9 miles off the coast of Gban. Craig over the years has become the prime granite for curling stones worldwide. K of Scotland use solely Craig granite. Actually using the two granites for the body of the stone, we use the Craig granite from the south of the query. And from the north of the query, we use the blue horn granite. That's the piece that runs on the ice. The majority of guys that come in here, they have no history of ever making curling stones. So everybody has to train from scratch. Nobody checks their own work. Every process is checked by the next member down the line. Right through to the final QC check and the final measurements taken off the stone. It's not rocket science, but each operator has to do the job exactly as required. There's no shortcuts. It's a long process and it's too expensive to get to the final end and there's a problem. So each operator is trained to do their job exactly as required by the company. So every stone that leaves here is all within ounces of weight and millimeters of the running edge and the striking band. At the moment we are doing quite a lot of work with China. That's a huge, huge country, and if they get totally involved which it looks like in curling, then there's a massive, massive market in China. Makes a change, Scotland sends stuff to China, rather than the other way around. Then over the next 5 to 10 years, there will be more and more countries joining the World Curling Federation. There's been intimation of Iran joining the World Curling Federation, Thailand, India. But until all these countries become members of International Olympic Committee, then on to the World Curling Federation before they'll start in theory buying stones direct from K of Scotland. But if all these countries join, then there's unlimited amount of work to keep this company going for at least 5, 10, and 15 years and beyond.