Making margins on mouldings is more of a struggle than it used to be. Growing imports from lower labour cost countries and the tendency of certain players to stack high and sell cheap have pushed some products to the brink of commodity status. But leading manufacturers remain bullish; optimistic they can compete – and make margins – through modern manufacturing technology, responsiveness to customer demand, innovation and design.
Undoubtedly among the fastest developing in the business is SAM Mouldings. Last year the Antrim-based producer, which claims 19% of UK MDF mouldings sales, extended its factory by 7,000m2 and invested £500,000 in a combined heat and power plant. This year it will buy a third beam saw, another moulder and upgrade priming facilities.
“There are some very keen pricers out there,” said SAM’s key accounts manager Gerard Wilson. “But we’ve maintained a tangible growth curve and, as our investment demonstrates, there’s no way we’re going to go backwards.”
Besides increasing capacity, developments at SAM are aimed at maintaining lead times and flexibility. “You may have to pay a bit more for our product,” he said, “but we give people what they want, when they want it. And that’s not just PR-speak. It’s proven by customer loyalty and our market leadership.”
And the company now aims to broaden its customer base. “We’ve seen national and regional builders adopting MDF,” said Mr Wilson. “The next target is the ‘white van’ builder.”
According to Blumsom managing director Nick Harmon-Jones, the demise of a number of long established producers recently highlights the competitiveness of the hardwood picture-frame mouldings sector. But Blumsom persists with the product.
“It has been tough, but we’ve just installed a quicker-setting moulder and computerised template maker to improve competitiveness,” he said.
He added that Blumsom is finding other markets less fierce-fought, with demand for hardwood door lippings and skirtings and trims that complement its booming solid hardwood flooring still healthy.
The company also seems unperturbed by the rise of MDF mouldings. “Hardwood mouldings remain popular and we’ve invested to offer a just-in-time service,” said Mr Harmon-Jones. “Many companies want quick turnaround, short runs and can’t or don’t want to buy huge quantities of MDF.”
Key showroom feature
At Blumsom’s Timber Centre showroom in London mouldings form a key feature, and they cover a range of species. “We’ve seen rising demand for temperate hardwoods, notably oak, maple and, recently, bold figured ash, but we’re also selling FSC-certified ramin.”
Equally enthusiastic about the hardwood mouldings sector is Tony James of Parker Kislingbury which last year invested £150,000 in new machinery to boost further processing capacity.
“We’re offering a fast-track mouldings service, five-day turnaround on moulded sections and two to three on PAR,” said Mr James. “There may be customers out there willing to wait 14 days, but many don’t work to that time-frame.”
Parker Kislingbury is also developing its route to market, effectively offering itself as a mouldings service arm to merchants.
“The idea is that the white van builder goes to the merchant asking for, say, 100m of skirting within the week,” said Mr James. “The merchant e-mails us the drawing and we do the rest.”
Parker Kislingbury also sees potential for mouldings species diversification. “I think we’ll see the European taste for more unusual species spreading to the UK,” said Mr James. “We recently persuaded a customer to take wenge mouldings to match a worktop.”
The latest development from International Timber (IT) is a range of small simply-styled Scandinavian pine mouldings to complement “minimalist” interiors, including quadrants, glass beads and dowels, complemented by standard strip wood.
In hardwood mouldings IT’s Sue Gunn said lighter species remain strong performers, despite the re-emergence of darker woods in other interiors applications. Oak, particularly, is the “species du jour”. “It fits with the rustic look in kitchens and flooring – it’s the hot species for the ‘noughties’,” she said. “Our oak flooring sales have soared recently and this is clearly impacting on sales of architraves and skirting.” She added that IT is already getting repeat orders for its just launched oak profiles in 2.4m lengths.
FW Mason believes that, despite the level of low cost competition, the mouldings market can support diversity. Its range runs the gamut, from primed and wrapped MDF, to bulk softwood and FSC-certified bespoke hardwood. And it’s looking to widen the selection.
“We’re considering the new plastic/wood composites,” said sales manager Pauline Morrison. “They’re versatile and their light weight would be an advantage for larger mouldings.”
In softwood and MDF, ‘standards’ may still make up a large part of Masons’ business, but it is finding the market increasingly demanding more choice.
“Today’s range of foils enables us to supply a huge variety of wrapped products,” said Ms Morrison. “We’re doing well with mouldings wrapped to match hardwood kitchen and furniture components.”
In profiles, Masons’ weather-eye on interiors trends has also picked up the move towards the pared down and architectural, leading to the launch of its starkly simple City Living pine range.
Richard Burbidge says that the entry of new, small suppliers in mouldings has made the business more competitive still. But it still managed a 3% overall sales growth last year and 20% in stripwood and architectural mouldings. The latter, said product manager Ruth Sperring were given a boost by the launch of “lifestyle ranges”, including Contemporary, Victorian, New England and Gothic.
She added that Burbidge has also been developing standard “functional” mouldings, such as quadrants and dowels. “There’s growing demand for adding decoration to these, such as fluting dowels,” she said.
Burbidge’s mouldings operation, which predominantly uses solid timber, has been among the beneficiaries of a recent £250,000 spend on new technology. The company has also improved delivery in response to “growing pressure on customers to limit stock”, and reviewed its marketing. “We no longer assume that builders or DIY-ers are fully aware of how products can be used and have improved point of sale and photography to suggest applications,” said Ms Sperring.
Irish manufacturer Wood Mouldings expressed its faith in the UK market by launching a sales division in Dawlish, Devon last year.
“We were confident that with Wood Mouldings’ experience and offering the right product and service, we could be successful,” said Clint Walker, head of the Devon operation. “And we’ve had a fantastic response – in fact we’re looking to add a full-time northern sales person to our five-strong UK team.”
Developing the mix
All Wood Mouldings’ products are solid softwood or hardwood and the company is gradually building up its UK range. “We’re still developing the mix to suit the market – in fact we had 12 new profiles in the latest delivery from Ireland,” said Mr Walker. “It means we’re bringing in more shipments than we’d ideally like. But we’re willing to do that to satisfy customers.”
Another newcomer in architectural mouldings is BLP UK. A long-established player in furniture and kitchen mouldings, the company said it diversified because it was “an opportunity staring us in the face”.
“It was a logical move as we had the expertise in veneer processing and veneer-wrapped mouldings and the right technology,” said marketing manager Tania Cheesmond.
The new range is targeted at merchants and includes veneer-wrapped skirting, architrave, doorsets and window board in 8ft and 10ft lengths.
“The biggest seller has been white oak, but ash, sapele, sycamore and polished cherry are popular too,” said Ms Cheesmond. “We’re also offering more unusual species on bespoke orders, such as Victorian-style skirting in figured sycamore.”
Finally, Finnforest heralds its new “Impressions” softwood mouldings as a “selling up opportunity for installers and distributors”, describing it as “one of the highest quality softwood moulding collections” on the market. The range comprises architraves, beadings, dado, skirting, coving and cornice sections in three designs: Victorian and Belgravia for a period look and contemporary Ovolo.
“We select the timber on the best of our unsorted boards to give an almost blemish free appearance,” said marketing services manager Julie McLean. “Mouldings of this quality require less remedial work and lend themselves to a paint finish, natural wood wax, or varnish.”
Impressions, she added, is supported with a glossy, consumer brochure, builder’s pocket guide and wall charts for merchants.
“With merchants’ stocking space judged on margin per m2, our message to them is move customers to a higher quality product and reap the rewards.”
