The New Aga is a Mercury
The Aga Rangemaster Group has announced that it has bought the range cooker company Mercury ... for a "cash consideration" of £425,000 ... making Aga's range cooker offering very comprehensive indeed.
British designed and made, Mercury range cookers were launched in the year 2000 and have proved very popular with upmarket customers. The RC1090 (below) has an extra large oven, a standard oven, a separate grill and a five burner gas hob with characteristic "cattle grid" cast iron pan supports.
Mercury also researched, designed (in collaboration with Seymour Powell) and produced a 21st century version of the heat storage range, which they called the Thermastone (the Aga being the most famous of the traditional heat storage ranges).
The Thermastone (above) uses silicon carbide, instead of cast iron, for heat storage and has four ovens at different temperatures, for roasting, baking, slow cooking and warming. The food is cooked gently in the ovens and it retains moisture - just like an Aga - but the hob is very different. It has two variable gas rings and a large square, electrically heated, chef's plate. The hob controls are the "Twist Grip" controls on the towel bar ... which work in a similar way to a motorbike throttle.
The Thermastone was in the same price range - if not rather more expensive - than an equivalent Aga ... and so would have had even lower volume sales than the Mercury cookers. Unfortunately for Mercury (and parent company Lincat plc - who produce commercial catering equipment), upmarket kitchen sales (and related upmarket appliance sales) have slowed dramatically in the recession and the company made a loss in the year to December 2008.
Acquisition of the Thermastone brand makes obvious sense for Aga, since it's a high tech version of the heat storage range cookers in which they specialise. To my mind, a Thermastone would look much more at home in a modern high tech kitchen than an Aga ... in spite of the pictures Aga Rangemaster produce, showing Agas in just such settings.
The Mercury RC1090 is a much less obvious asset for Aga, since it's a direct competitor with their Falcon range cookers. If past performance is anything to go by, though, Aga may well keep the brand name ... after all, they have kept the Rayburn, Waterford Stanley (Irish), La Cornue (French) and Heartland (Canada) range cooker brand names, as well as marketing their Rangemaster and Falcon cookers separately.
Aga say that they will extend the Mercury cooker range and will produce Mercury cookers at their Leamington Spa site from 2010. That's good news, I suppose ... I have nothing but praise for the cookers produced by the Aga Rangemaster Group. I do think it's a bit of a shame, though, when new and innovative products get assimilated into the product range with which they were supposed to compete.
STOP PRESS November 2010 ... Aga seem to have discontinued the Thermastone this August! I didn't see it mentioned in the news at all, but all mention of it on the Mercury website (except for the brochure - which has no picture and is now available only by post) has disappeared. A quick search reveals that one Aga dealer has it listed as discontinued from August. What a terrible shame that is! Did Aga buy Mercury just to kill the competition from the more modern and more efficient Thermastone? Or will we see a new modern Aga, encompassing the Thermastone technology. We shall have to wait and see.
Comments
I have to agree with your sign off comments regarding the absorption of Mercury by AGA Rangemaster being a shame.
Like you, I have great respect for AGA and Rangemaster products but cannot help but wonder if the design freedom Mercury gave to SeymourPowell will now be lost. Mercury really did rethink constant heat range cookers with its Thermastone, something AGA has yet to do.
Mind you, if you can buy the finished product off the shelf for a reported £425k, you'd be daft not to!
I was supposed to have delivered the Thermastone last week, still not arrived in Belgium.
On the phone - because they have no computer system ! - I have been told that all sales personnel (and it-sales systems) are gone and thus they have no way of finding my order !
I imagine this is the kind of modern professionalism AGA is going to show us in the future !
Sorry to hear about your problems Annette. It must be very disappointing and frustrating
I hope they manage to sort out the paperwork and honour existing orders ... especially in view of how much of a bargain some of us think the purchase was!
Thanks for your reply and sympathy. Indeed a bargain, only 3 times the price of Mercury's loss last year - for the most promising design ever seen in stoves (I have been looking for this kind of old timer in comtempory design and technology for years and years!)
Apart from not having anything to cook with these days, what triggers my insatisfaction is that Mercury had such a good sales assistance and now everybody has gone. Did they walk out on their own decision in loyalty to design etc. and maybe "sabotaged" the it-system on their way out, or is it AGA sabotaging Mercury? Not a professional take over by any means.
Since my first message here on your blog this morning, I've been in contact with AGA sales department and with some coercion it seems to work, i.e. they have sent somebody to run around at the Mercury warehouse looking for my Thermastone. But should that really be necessary with such a big company and for such an expensive order made item?
Apart from worrying about what I can microwave for the next days (weeks?) I'm starting to worry about cooker design's future - i.e. everything essential is on AGA hands now, right?
I can't answer your questions Annette. It certainly wouldn't make any sense for Aga to sabotage Mercury, now that they've bought them ... and Aga have a good reputation here ... but the takeover does seem a tiny bit inefficient, from what you say.
All I can do is cross my fingers for you!
Thanks again Majjie for your kind words. I've been reassured that my Thermastone will be delivered end of this week. Cross my fingers.
AGA is indeed a great company and heat storage cookers are amongst the cook's best inventions - only design wise they've been far behind for some time, need to move forward and I hope also that is what they are doing now.
Nice to have discovered your site. Very good design also !
Hello. Do you know who is handling technical support for Mercury ranges now?
I ask as my RC1090 is not sealing properly on the smaller oven I would like to know how to adjust the door so it seals properly. The seal is not damaged but I did move house recently and I think the oven door might have shifted in the process too.
This is a really interesting comment to come across on the internet. I have exactly the same problem with my RC1090. I had an engineer visit but he thought he was coming to a Thermastone despite the fact that I told customer services exactly which cooker I had!
He did take a look though and told me the hinge was worn out! Really poor - not impressed at all with the quality of such an expensive appliance! Have been trying for several weeks to get hold of the correct part to fix the problem.
Matt - did you have any luck getting your door fixed? (I realise yours is a fairly old post so you may not see this!)
Thanks
Hi Anonymous,
I think you may be right that Matt won't notice your reply - he doesn't get notified of new comments like I do!
Have you tried asking about your cooker over on the UK Whitegoods Forum? They're often very helpful over there and they supply spare parts too - although the Mercury isn't a cooker with high volume sales - so they may not have come across the problem before.
Hi Matt ... Aga Rangemaster have taken that over ... but they'll keep the trademark names going ... so you just need to go to the Mercury website for details.
The Technical Queries helpline is 0870 589 5105
HTH
Majjie
I am considering buying a Thermastone, but dont know much about it.
Can anybody tell me ... is it any good to cook on? Or is it reliable and durable? Is it hard to run? Will it cook all day without a cough ... is it any good?
Sorry Steve, obviously nobody who's got a Thermastone has been visiting recently.
I wouldn't hesitate to buy one - if I had the money and the space - it seems to me that it combines the best of all worlds. It has traditional heat storage ovens but in a modern material (designed to lose less heat than an Aga would, when you open the doors) ... two powerful gas hobs ... plus a chef's plate which gets very hot in the centre (you can cook on it directly) but you can also move pans to the side for a lower heat - and it acts as a warming plate when it's off but the ovens are on. The cooker doesn't need a flue, either, so it's easy to fit into most kitchens.
If I was getting one, I'd have a separate combi-microwave oven too - for when the Thermastone ovens were off and I wanted to heat something quickly. Like an Aga, the ovens take 6-8 hours to warm up, but - unlike an Aga - you can use the hobs when the ovens are off. Cooking on it all day shouldn't be a problem at all, I wouldn't have thought.
It's won quite a few awards too ... but I've never cooked on one, so can't give you any first hand feedback, I'm afraid.
Please could anybody point me in the direction of where I might find receipes for the Thermastone. Are the cooking times the same as with the AGA?
Thank you
Hi Lorraine,
I'm afraid I don't know much about cooking with a Thermastone. The four ovens are each designed to run at a constant and different temperature, 240 degrees mainly for roasting, 180 degrees mainly for baking, 120 degrees for slow cooking and 60 degrees for plate warming and keeping food warm. So, for standard recipes, you just choose the oven nearest to the temperature that you need.
I guess the closest Aga would be the three oven - which also has separate ovens for roasting and baking - the two oven versions just have a roasting (and baking) oven and a simmering oven.
If any Thermastone owners read this - then please give us the benefit of your experience.
I'm very shocked to find, though (see my addition to the original post), that Aga have discontinued the Thermastone! As I originally said, I thought the Thermastone was a good buy for Aga and I'm really disappointed that they haven't kept it, as an addition to their cooker offering (like they have with so many of their other acquisitions).
Very interested to read all this, as we have had a Thermastone for almost a year now. Having a few problems though...
The gas hobs kept cutting out when on their lowest settings, and the control bar has just been replaced with something greatly inferior to the beautifully engineered mechanism that was originally in place. Also the door of the roasting oven keeps opening, and we have to keep an allen key next to it so that we can tighten the door catch each time we use it. That's a pain!
It has been good to cook on, and if these problems can be rectified then fine... but I'm not sure what can be done now that the cookers are no longer available (and are probably not being manufactured).
Thanks for letting us know it's been good to cook on your Thermastone, KN. I'm sorry to hear about your problems with it.
Having bought the business, I'd expect Aga to rectify any problems with existing cookers. That's obviously going to be difficult, if they're not making the cookers anymore ... but surely they must have kept a stock of parts for just that purpose?
I still think it's a great shame they haven't persevered with it!
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