Bottle cleaning device catches on for home- and small-scale brewers - A&M Manufacturing - www.turboscrub.com

Modern Brewery Age, Jan 26, 2004

AP--After decades of making wine at his Elk County, PA, farm, Angelo Segalla figured there had to be a better way to clean the sediment from empty bottles and jugs. So with a bit of tinkering in his garage, he put some cloth on a metal rod and attached it to a hand-held drill, creating a powerful scrubber.

Segalla, 68, who lives on 100 acres in the tiny village of Weedville, never thought about selling the homemade tool until earlier this year, when his niece, Mary Meredith of Du Bois, Clearfield County, mentioned that she wanted to start her own business.

Rather than hunt for a new product to market, Segalla's daughter suggested that Meredith take a look at her father's cleaning invention. Within weeks, Segalla and Meredith launched A&M Manufacturing to sell what they dubbed the Turbo Scrubber to wine and beer makers around the world.

Since May, the upstart enterprise, based at Meredith's home, has sold about 3,000 scrubbers. Many discovered the product, which sells for $24.95 to $45 depending on its size, on the company's Web site, www.turboscrub.com.

The scrubber looks like a miniature mop, with chamois fabric attached to one end of a stainless steel rod and a standard power drill on the other. After it's inserted into an empty bottle or carboy--the jugs in which wine and beer are made--the drill quickly spins the rod and fabric around the glass. It's recommended that only plain water be used with the scrubber because soap and chemicals leave deposits that can spoil future batches of wine or beer. The fabric, which A&M imports from Europe, can be replaced as it wears out or becomes soiled.

A&M, which has applied for a patent for its scrubber in the United States and Canada, is doing all it can to keep up with orders that far exceeded expectations. Orders took off after Meredith and her twin sister, Margie Wilderoter, of O'Hara Township, introduced the scrubber at a trade show in March.

"Originally we wanted the product to go nationwide in the first year, but we got that in the first five months," said Meredith, 35. The mother of two young children oversees production and distribution from her home office and shares administrative duties with Wilderoter, a mother of 2-year-old triplets who focuses on marketing.

The twin sisters grew up in Du Bois and spent summers swimming, riding horses and hanging out with their cousins at Segalla's Weedville farm. Their uncle, they say, is a self-taught inventor who has always solved problems by coming up with whatever gadgets he needs.

Take his working garage. On one side there's an old school bus with a diesel engine that he reconfigured to spread cinder and gravel on icy, snowy roads.

In the rear, there's a greenhouse where plants are fed with water recycled from the furnace he built on his own. And next to the garage is a log splitter where he cuts his own wood.

Segalla grew up on the farm and learned some of his skills working in the construction and logging businesses. "Whenever someone needed something, I made it."

Now retired, he spends much of his time in his garage and was the chief engineer for the scrubber when his nieces wanted to modify the prototype to make it more customer friendly.

The owners put up about $30,000 in savings to launch the business, Meredith said. They wouldn't disclose sales but maintained that the venture had started to turn a profit.

The potential, it would seem, would be significant as more and more people pursue wine- and beer-making as a hobby. Production of the scrubber already has expanded from Segalla's garage. Though Segalla mills some of the rods, most of the processing is now done at Florio Tooling in St. Marys, Elk County. The fabric is cut and scrubbers assembled, packaged and shipped at Brookville Glove in Jefferson County.

Besides direct sales from its Web site, A&M sells the product through several wine- and beer-making equipment distributors and in specialty retail outlets.

"We put it on the shelf and it started selling in about two days," said Alexis Hartung, an owner of Country Wines in Pittsburgh. Hartung said her customers liked the scrubber because it's fast and doesn't spray them with water as they pull it out of the containers.

"It's a good concept. They've taken solid materials that are going to be there for the long haul."

Dennis Narcisi, owner of La Casa Narcisi Winery in West Deer Township bought four scrubbers for his winemaking operation, including a large one for containers that hold 1,000 liters. "They are fantastic. Most brushes don't get into the necks and bottoms of the vessels to clean that well."

Meredith, who holds bachelor's and master's degrees in business from Duquesne University, worked in public accounting and in business development for Hughes Electronics and PrimeStar. Wiideroter, who has a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Notre Dame and a master's in science and industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University, worked for DQE and Allegheny Energy Solutions.