The Three Pillars The Team
UMAMI‘s founders represent the intersection of three disciplines that rarely meet: the ability to build and operate high-performance manufacturing on the ground, the science to turn urban waste into premium custom alloys, and the architecture to connect it all into a cooperative network that creates value for everyone inside it.
Josh Deetz
The Alloy
Architect
Josh turns waste into what virgin aluminium cannot match.
Four decades at the frontier of metallurgical science and industrial process engineering. He has developed alloys for NASA ballistic trials and troubleshot performance limits for Koenigsegg. He has defined global bicycle industry standards – tubeless wheels, braking systems – produced at a scale exceeding one billion units. He has reengineered magnesium processes for global electronics manufacturers and crafted wheels for Aston Martin. From the molecular to the massive, his work has always lived where material science meets real-world production.
At UMAMI, Josh is the reason the system works. He developed the Fit for Purpose methodology: custom alloy formulations designed backward from what the application demands and forward from what the local waste stream provides. His proprietary alloy chip – a precisely formulated metallic additive – converts specific post-consumer waste into certified alloys with exact mechanical properties for each customer’s application. Partners receive chips. Never the formulation.
But the alloy is only half his contribution. For each hub partner’s specific equipment, Josh develops optimised manufacturing parameters – tool speeds, temperatures, feed rates, cooling sequences – calibrated so that material and process perform as one integrated system. The result: reduced cycle times, lower defect rates, superior surface quality, lower production cost.
He doesn’t just give partners better material. He makes their entire operation better.
Janez Poje
The Hub
Architect
Janez builds what others plan on paper.
34 years in metal manufacturing – from tool design to boardroom, from factory floor to the presidency of ISTMA Europe, the International Special Tooling and Machining Association. He has led manufacturing operations as CEO, restructured toolshops with international partners, implemented Six Sigma as a certified Black Belt, deployed ERP systems across multiple companies, and managed nuclear-grade quality systems for Westinghouse.
He doesn’t advise manufacturers. He is one. He has hired the teams, run the shifts, signed the orders, and solved the problems at 2am when a production line stops. He holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 27001 implementation experience – not as auditor, but as the person responsible for making them work inside real operations.
At UMAMI, Janez is the person who makes hubs real. He identifies the right manufacturing partners, assesses their capabilities, builds the operational infrastructure, and ensures every hub runs at the standard the system demands.
When a municipality asks “who actually builds this?” – Janez is the answer.
He speaks the language of makers because he has been one his entire career. The hub partners trust him because he has stood where they stand.
Lutz Kucher
The Network
Architect
Lutz designs the system that connects everything else.
Three decades of Strategic Design – not as a discipline taught from textbooks, but as a practice applied to building industries that didn’t exist before. He helped architect the modern eBike market, envisioning and aligning Bosch, Panasonic, Haibike and key industry players to establish what became a €20 billion industry. With Spoke Safety, he connected the mobility ecosystem with vulnerable road users to advance safer, greener urban transport.
His expertise is Transformational Design: the craft of aligning diverse stakeholders – who have different interests, different scales, different cultures – into cooperative structures that create genuine wins for everyone inside them. A network survives only if the architecture makes fairness structural rather than aspirational.
At UMAMI, Lutz is the architect of the cooperative network and its market strategy. He designs the relationships between municipalities, hub partners, brands, and communities.
He developed the third pillar – Local Market Activation – the capability no competitor can replicate: Local Editions, city-branded products, community identification, and the marketing infrastructure that turns every hub city into a dedicated platform for partner brands.
UMAMI synergises.
Janez builds the hubs. Josh creates the material science and process optimisation that make them superior. Lutz connects hubs, brands, municipalities, and communities into a network that generates market value beyond manufacturing.
Three capabilities. Three pillars. Each held by someone who has spent a career mastering exactly what UMAMI demands of them. The convergence is what makes this system buildable.