Summary
• Meulebeke, Belgian-based Willy Carpentier is 50 years old.
• The company supplies European, tropical and North American hardwood, including FSC and PEFC material.
• It stocks around 7,000m³ over two sites.
• Plans are in place to set up operations in France and Ukraine.
• In 2007 Carpentier appointed a dedicated agent to the UK.
Willy Carpentier Houtindustrie is throwing a party this summer.
The festivities at its Meulebeke headquarters will mark the Belgian hardwood trader’s first half century and guests will include customers from key export destinations. Having jumped in recent years from being Carpentier’s fifth to its biggest foreign market, that will, of course, include the UK.
The company does have quite a bit to celebrate. Founder Willy Carpentier, now 70 and still sourcing standing timber for the business, set out in 1958 to supply beech and oak to the local furniture industry and brush manufacturers. Today the customer-base stretches across Europe and includes importers, wholesalers, flooring producers, joinery manufacturers and construction companies. The company also sells logs to sawmills.
Carpentier’s timber range has also developed. It is now divided around 60% European hardwoods, 20% tropical and 20% North American. Within that mix, the company supplies logs and sawn timber, flooring grades and a variety of decking profiles in species from ipe and cumaru, to itauba and teak.
European oak
European oak, sourced from France and eastern Europe and all PEFC certified, remains at the heart of the operation, but here too the offer has diversified, ranging from boules to speciality, fixed-width flooring grades.
“Some suppliers offer the market what they produce,” said Stefan Vander Stichele, one of the company’s three general managers alongside Heidi and Kristof Carpentier. “We’ve always tried to understand precisely what the individual customer needs and provide that. Our big selling point in oak, in particular, is this variety; from boules, which we always have in stock, to square edged product.”
And, he added, Carpentier’s offer continues to evolve. Latest additions include louro vermelho cladding from Brazil and a trial container of heat-treated red oak. To complement its solid flooring, it has introduced an engineered range from China with a 4mm hardwood surface.
At Meulebeke, Carpentier has 10,000m² of undercover storage on its 2.3ha site. Most machining is handled by contractors, but it does have a Stenner resaw for cutting material for 9mm solid overlay flooring and top layers for engineered ranges, plus a multi-rip for fixed-width items and joinery products from kiln-dried boules.
Another aspect of the business for which it’s well-known is kilning. “We now have 13 kilns with capacity of 1,300m³, a mix of Bes Bollman and Brunner-Hildebrand, and a vacuum dryer,” said Mr Vander Stichele. “Doing our own drying gives us quality control. We always use high grade sticking and we’ll also rekiln material that comes in dry to make sure it’s to standard.”
To keep up with demand, the company now additionally leases 5,000m² of warehousing near Meulebeke, stocking around 7,000m³ between the sites.
Software investment
“We’ve also invested in our computer systems to keep up with the volume of business and changing order patterns,” said Mr Vander Stichele. “A few years ago, 90% of sales were fixed contract, now it’s 40-50%. Smaller, quick turnaround orders have increasingly become the norm.”
Carpentier’s computer system, which it developed with a software house, is specially geared to cope with the more fluid pace of business.
“Everything is bar coded and has a unique position in the warehouse,” said Mr Vander Stichele. “The software gives a precise view of stocks and takes items off the inventory immediately they go out, and scanning of packs as they go on to the lorry, printing of delivery notes and invoicing are all automatic.” Backed with this technology, Carpentier promises most deliveries in Europe within the week. UK orders are generally turned around in two to three days, five to six for smaller batches.
Among its next planned developments, Carpentier intends to set up satellite operations in France and the Ukraine, its two main sources of European oak.
Carpentier is also diversifying its customer base, with one new focus being the Far East where many of the European furniture manufacturers it supplied in the past have migrated.
UK representative
Another key strategic sales development was the appointment last autumn of Wim Gabriel as representative for the UK, where Carpentier sells mainly European oak (everything from sleepers for garden landscaping, to timber building beams).
“The UK has been a very good market for us, second only to Belgium, and it’s where we get biggest demand for FSC timber,” said Heidi Carpentier. “Previously, Stefan covered the market, but could only get over once every eight weeks. Now Wim is there three weeks out of four.”
Currently, she acknowledged, the strength of the euro is making UK trade more difficult. “But we’re optimistic for the longer term with the growth in timber building and the London Olympics forecast to increase demand,” she said. “We expect UK sales to double in a few years.”
So clearly, when Carpentier hosts its celebrations this summer, it won’t just be marking its achievements to date; it will also be inviting customers to join it in a toast to the future.
