Peugeot’s pepper mill

Most people associate the name Peugeot with cars, but it was in fact the Peugeot family who in 1842, fifty years before their first automobile appeared, turned kitchen culture upside down with their invention of the pepper mill.

This was an ingenious innovation that has retained the same appearance and construction until today.
The grinding component of a Peugeot pepper mill is stamped from steel plate, giving it unrivalled durability.

Later a similar salt mill was produced, but the steel grinder had to be replaced by a nylon or plastic one because salt oxidises steel, causing the steel to decompose and give off a disagreeable taste.

Peugeot’s brilliant invention has since been copied and imitated throughout the world in countless variations.

Almost every house in the western world has a mill that doesn’t work properly.

The market for them is large, with millions sold every year.

Only the original Peugeot mill functions as it should, and only the pepper mill at that. When it comes to salt – not to mention other spices – most of us must resort to more or less useless mills or pre-ground products poured from various types of bags or sprinkled from jars with caps to hold in the aroma.

Almost all kitchens have countless old, dry, useless spices that really should be thrown out.

That is how it’s been.
That’s how it is now.
But it does not need to remain that way…

The ceramic grinder
In 1992, IDEAS discovered a small, insignificant disposable grinder from the American spice company McCormick.
Millions were sold annually, and apparently no one had noticed something special about them – they were ceramic!
Just like the old mortars.

IDEAS traced the ceramic grinder’s origins to Japan and the laboratory of an engineer and inventor named Kamioka, who works with pure ceramic materials.

A fruitful collaboration took root, and a totally new, epoch-making type of product was created.

The legendary Peugeot pepper mill had at last found its equal, and one that could also be used with salt and all the wonderful spices in the world.

CrushGrind® – the original ceramic mechanism™

People have always needed to crush and grind grains and parts of dried plants, and they have used stones and mortars for this work,
which was often laborious.

The idea behind CrushGrind® is exactly the same
- only the result requires much less effort!