Swiss hardwood flooring producer Bauwerk Parkett has launched a dedicated UK sales and distribution arm.
Bauwerk Parkett (UK) Ltd has set up in Swallowfield, Reading and is headed by managing director John Buchanan, previously with Swedish flooring producer Tarkett.
At a launch presentation in London, Mr Buchanan said that the UK company will initially focus on the commercial market, targeting the retail sector, ‘high-end speculative housing developments’, the hotel and leisure industries and commercial offices.
‘We will be selling at the outset to flooring contractors and joiners,’ he said. ‘But the merchant sector may develop for us in the future.’
Bauwerk previously sold via an agency in the UK which offered its heavy duty mosaic range. The new sales subsidiary will focus on four lines in Bauwerk’s two-layer glue-down parquet strip and board range.
‘We will also be offering the full range of adhesives, primers and accessories so we can guarantee our floors are correctly fitted,’ said Mr Buchanan. ‘In addition, we are launching an installers training roadshow.’
Bauwerk is not currently planning to set up a UK stockholding.
‘But we can deliver very rapidly from our factories in Switzerland, Germany and France,’ said Mr Buchanan. ‘Generally, we’ll offer 10-day order turnaround, but we could deliver in five days on urgent orders.’
Bauwerk Parkett’s chief executive Dieter Betz was upbeat about the prospects in the UK for Bauwerk and timber flooring generally. ‘It is perhaps the most interesting market in Europe for us,’ he said. ‘In Switzerland annual sales of wood flooring are 4 million m2, which is 0.6m2 per head of population. In the UK the per capita figure is one tenth of that. The scope for growth is enormous.’
Bauwerk Parkett is part of Nybron, Europe’s biggest timber flooring producer, which also owns Kährs.
