CWB speaks to Jason Beckley, founder of the new ethical and sustainable school shoe brand, Grow.
Laura Turner: What’s the story behind Grow?
Jason Beckley: We launched Grow in September 2021 and the story is quite simple really. It’s a combination of influences that formed the concept of Grow. The first one is personal experience in the fashion and footwear industry, having worked in it for more than 20 years making product all over the world for major brands such as Nike and Puma, as well as smaller high-end brands like Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen. Also, first-hand experience working directly making school shoes for the category-leading company in the UK.
It was here that everything fell into place in terms of how destructive the industry is and how low quality the product is. We felt there had to be a better way to offer a far higher production standard and a far less harmful product. Plus, we have children and could see how underfunded their school was. We felt the time for a community-focused brand was now, we could use the internet as a marketing and trading platform and reduce overheads so that we could give back money to education. Grow is about clean product, better product, and supporting education.
LT: What values underpin the brand?
JB: We’re trying to achieve four simple things. To recreate shoe production; to make it clean and sustainable using no animal products and reduce carbon emissions by producing the product close to where it’s sold so we never exploit poverty and always pay factory workers a fair wage. To create a better product, one that really works; stronger, better breathability for increased foot health, easier to clean, and easier to care for. To build a company that gives back; we will always look to use our marketing budgets to fund communities. Right now, it is education, we give 10% of the RRP to a child’s local school.
It’s shocking that education needs funding yet no company that makes products required for school gives any of their profit to education. At Grow, we honestly believe that all of the challenges the world faces can be solved through education. It is a mission to use our company to support the people of the future. The last one is simple; we don’t support old fashion gender stereotyping. Grow shoes are contemporary in all they stand for. There are no little trains or dinosaurs for boys and princesses or flowers for girls.
Whoever you are, however you feel, is perfect. It’s lazy to make gender assumptions, so we just create a clean, classic, well-made product. There are no pester marketing efforts in a Grow shoe – hiding a cheap plastic toy in the sole unit of a shoe degrades the performance massively and is only there to create a problem between the wearer and the carer so there is pressure to purchase.
LT: What does the collection comprise?
JB: We have eight styles developed and ready to range. The first four are in stock and available now. There is a sandal (Handle This), a Mary Jane (MJ Jayne), a single strap derby (One Star General), and a sports style (Alexi Clydero). We plan to build the collection over time.
The products are shaped, lasted and moulded in Italy and produced in Portugal and the quality is super high. The design process was very involved, sitting down with my children and all of their friends and finding out what they wanted – it was great fun.
We offer a European size range and are the first shoe company in the world to use 3D scanning from an iPhone to get an exact size. We want to burst the bubble of the sizing trap. Most shoe brands take a length, width and sometimes a circumference measurement and then compare this to their stock and see which is the best fit. If you use the scanning app on Grow’s website, we take over 1,000 sizing points to give you an exact foot measurement.
All our shoes are sized for children’s feet between the ages of 4 and 11, so they are wide − it’s very rare for children not to have a wide foot – and we are currently working with podiatrists on high arch and toe height, which gives greater fit effectiveness rather than just width.
LT: Can you tell me more about the materials you use?
JB: Our materials are an organic vegan leather that is accredited to Oeko-Tex Standard 100 class 1, the highest level of ethical and sustainable produced materials. Our materials also have six times the breathability of leather and over three times the burst and abrasion strength. It’s a stronger, healthier and kinder material to make shoes from.
We started out not using leather purely for ethical and sustainable reasons. We need to use less leather in the world and the kind of cheap leather used in school shoes is especially bad. It’s produced in unethical ways, is highly pollutant and emits tonnes of carbon in transportation. Also, leather is just not a great material for school shoes, so we found a material that allows the foot to breathe better, move more, to not get out of shape and scratch − a material that is truly fit for purpose.
LT: Are the shoes easy to care for?
JB: Yes, Grow shoes need no polishing. Just wipe them clean. The material is 100% waterproof anyway, so just water and a sponge and you’re done. No more polishing school shoes, hooray!
LT: Where is Grow manufactured?
JB: Our entire production process is within 1,500 miles of where the shoes are sold. The materials are made in Spain and the shoes are made in Portugal. We save over 20,000 manufacturing miles per pair compared to the established school shoemakers. It’s all produced to extremely high-quality standards. Even though our shoes cost the customer the same price, it costs us over three times the amount to make a Grow shoe compared to the industry-leading school shoemaker. Our products are built to an extremely high European quality level in a family-owned factory.
LT: What measures are you taking to make the business as sustainable as possible?
JB: Grow is ultimately born clean. This is not a conversion company, we haven’t spent years harming the world and are now looking to clean up our act because the consumer demands it, we are pure from the start. Every pair of Grow shoes being worn to school helps the climate, they reduce carbon emissions massively, they stop the needless deforestation, they reduce the reliance on cheap labour, and eradicate the need to produce animals just for their skin.
Every single element of a Grow shoe is clean − even the shoeboxes are recycled, and the delivery costs are carbon offset. Big companies that have spent years harming the world and are now greenwashing their customers with supposed ‘sustainability’ charters are a major problem. At Grow, we had to recreate every element of the production process to make it local and clean.
The mass leather footwear industry is inherently harmful to the world. The leather is often produced on pastureland reclaimed from forests in South America. There is no tangible by-product here, this is a production process directly to produce leather. You have to clear forests and make pastures to graze animals that are born only for their hide, it’s really dark and destructive. Then the shoes themselves are made on the other side of the world from where the leather is produced, in Southeast Asia, simply because you can exploit poverty there making products at unbelievably low prices.
The shoes are then shipped pre-packed in their boxes to the UK. The whole process is a journey of over 22,000 miles.
LT: What are your plans for wholesale?
JB: When we self-operate we are a direct-to-consumer business – our products are a lot more expensive to make and of far higher quality than everything else out there, but we want to match our competitors’ retail price.
We are not looking to try and place the brand everywhere, so will not build a big wholesale team, but we would like to work with a small amount of specialist wholesale partners who share our passions. We would love to work with people who have the drive and ambition to develop the industry for the better.
LT: What is your long-term vision for the business?
JB: Ethicality, sustainability and education will always be at the core of what we do. And we will always do this for the people who wear our products to express their beautiful uniqueness without ever feeling pressured to be anything other than themselves. Grow is about better products for the people of the future.
We’re very fortunate that the brand has attracted positive attention already, and we are getting approached with opportunities to partner with amazing people and brands. We will look to these partnerships to launch our non-school products, exciting collaborations and engaging capsules.
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