Summary
• Voorderhaak is focusing on meeting precise specifications rather than simply supplying mixed qualities.
• Dekker Hout is introducing a new range of FSC-certified product.
• Wijma has doubled its area of FSC-certified forest concessions in Cameroon.

There’s a perception in the media that the UK economy, and especially the building and construction supply sectors, have been hit harder by global recession than counterparts elsewhere in Europe. But that doesn’t seem to be the perspective of leading Dutch timber suppliers. They acknowledge business is challenging, but say the UK downturn is not exceptional. They also remain confident in longer-term prospects in the market, both as an outlet for existing timber and wood products ranges and the new lines they’re introducing.

A long-established supplier to the UK, Rucphen-based hardwood trader Voorderhaak said that it was “business as usual” until the end of 2008. Then exports took a downturn through the first quarter of 2009.

“But it was the same everywhere,” said managing director Dirk Voorderhaak. “The UK has not been exceptionally bad, and feedback recently shows customers more positive than they’ve been for three months.” UK companies “still don’t want to risk overstocking” and are buying smaller quantities on shorter lead times, which, said Mr Voorderhaak, made his company’s ability to truck deliveries over in 24 hours an advantage.

“But the flow of business is steady,” he said. “And we’re finding the renovation market is holding up particularly well – better than new construction.”

Value-adding

Voorderhaak, he added, has also not been diverted by the recession from strategic moves into more value-added, further processed and non-standard items.

“The aim is to tailor material to customers’ needs,” he said. “We’re developing as much business as possible in boules, and square edge and non-standard sizes, for example, especially thicker material for flooring and other interior applications. The focus is delivering exactly what customers ask for – not lots of mixed qualities.”

Voorderhaak, whose range includes North and South American and European species, has also been increasing its certified timber offer. “Where we can’t find a particular species certified, we are now looking for alternatives,” he said. “A successful recent introduction for us in the UK is FSC cumaru for decking.”

Expanding its ranges of certified timber, garden products and joinery is also a continuing key objective of Dekker Hout.

“We’ve added several new FSC-certified hardwoods: kempas for garden products and flooring, cedrorana and tauari for our door range, purpleheart for decking and garden tiles and western red cedar siding,” said Robert Jan Dekker. “We’ve also introduced an FSC-certified pre-hung door assembly. Overall our percentage of FSC hardwood almost doubled from 2007-2008, and it’s still increasing. Practically all our softwood products are also FSC and our MDF mouldings are PEFC certified.”

Changes in demand

He acknowledged that some joinery customers had cut back on certified purchases in an effort to trim costs in the recession. Dekker Hout is also “experiencing a lot of competition from smaller companies working with uncertified and, in many cases, illegal hardwoods”. But demand has held up well in the DIY market.

“We’re also still looking for partners in the traditional timber trade with the same progressive strategy on certification as us,” he said. “And we are offering FSC-certified alternatives, for example in decking, at prices equal to uncertified products.”

Dekker Hout expects the rest of 2009 to be testing and is projecting a 20% overall turnover downturn, but it believes its lack of debt and 80,000m³ stockholding stand it in good stead to weather the market contraction. It is also continuing to invest, recently installing a new cross-cutting line and moulders at its Netherlands facilities and door and garden products lines at its Bolivian plant.

In the UK, the strength of the pound is proving an additional hurdle, but Dekker Hout continues to do well with hardwood garden products, particularly drilled and dowelled balustrade components. “And we’re confident the Olympic Games developments will result in opportunities for our FSC range,” said Mr Dekker.

Wijma presses on with certification

Meanwhile, Wijma, the international hardwood trader and African specialist, is blunt about the current climate. “Business was not too bad until the last quarter of 2008, but since then there’s been a downward trend affecting trade with the building sector throughout Europe and the US and, in line with that, also with furniture, flooring and plywood producers in the Far East,” said vice-president Ad Wesselink. “2009 will be tough for all of us. And 2010? Call me in December and I’ll tell you then!”

But while starkly realistic about prospects, Wijma is clearly not just battening down the hatches to await the upturn. It is also still bringing new products to market and signing up new customers. This includes in the UK where it has its own sales subsidiary in Brandon, Suffolk and, like other traders, does not see prospects being particularly more difficult than anywhere else.

Wijma is also pressing on with its certification programme through the recession. In fact, its major recent development was the FSC accreditation of another of its forest concessions in Cameroon, which took its total certified area in the country to nearly 100,000ha (www.ttjonline.com/wijmafsc).

“This trebled our volumes of certified timber and, despite the economic crisis, we are considering FSC certifying another Cameroon concession,” said Mr Wesselink.

The latest certification success has also increased the range of Wijma’s FSC species, grades and log sizes and it has been actively promoting the new additions.

“Because the well-known species are readily available in the current market conditions, this is proving difficult, but times will change,” said Mr Wesselink. “The aim is to improve the yield of the forest.”

UK market

In the UK Wijma has seen business fluctuating over recent months. “But we’re now seeing the first signs of stocks bottoming out and expect more forward buying by importers as they bring them back to an adequate level,” said Mr Wesselink.

The company’s most successful species in the UK are sapele, iroko, framire and sipo. But it also does well with marine or ‘hydraulic’ varieties for applications like lock gates, including Demerara greenheart and azobe or ekki.

The company also stresses that it will remain “actively involved in the UK” and is positive about the longer term. At the same time, Mr Wesselink cautioned that market prospects against rival materials in the downturn would not be improved if companies watered down pledges on environmentally-sound sourcing.

“We believe governments and the timber industry in the UK and on the Continent should talk less and do more,” he said. “We all have to sing the same song and purchase exclusively legal, sustainable wood. Many suppliers have made unexpected progress in certifying their forests, especially in Africa, and in this difficult market situation, we should not let them down.”