Nowadays, Glastonbury is probably best known for its music festival, when the surrounding area is taken over by thousands of revellers. But in this lovely Somerset market town Snows Timber runs to a different beat, providing a wide timber service to its customers in southern England and Wales.

Snows is an interesting mix of long established companies, joined together in such a way that it harnesses these years of expertise and experience, while having the right foundations to continue developing new products and techniques.

The original company was founded in the 19th century, as John Snow & Co, and developed in Glastonbury to the point where it occupied a site in excess of 50 acres. Around 15 years ago, the Bradford & Sons Group acquired the business and since then it has been rationalised and developed.

In 1996 Snows bought out the Andover based business of FJ Reeves, giving a far wider geographical spread and the company now employs over 165 people on these two sites, distributing sawn and machined softwoods, sheet materials and a vast array of engineered wood products.

Jim Peryer took over as managing director in 1998, after many years experience in the softwood importing sector. He clearly sees Snows Timber as a business that has all the right ingredients to develop, not necessarily by just making sales, but by strategically arranging the mix of products sold to its targeted customers.

‘These days,’ said Mr Peryer, ‘so many com-panies see basic timber as a commodity to just sell in with their mainstream items, to meet a sales target; prices get cut and margins are eroded to the point where it’s not viable.

‘Joists are a classic example,’ he continued. ‘We’re seeing some merchants selling out house sets at incredibly low rates, presumably just looking at the percentage margin they’re making, instead of studying the labour and haulage involved. That’s why Snows continues to invest heavily in timber engineering and machining, which we see as putting space between ourselves and the opposition, who’ll probably continue to carve each other up on price.’

Specialist packages

This strategy is typical of the way that the company is developing, by giving its target customers a full package of specialist timber products, as well as the items that are needed on a day-to-day basis. When this is added to its years of experience, wide range of stocks and high service levels, Snows can provide customers with an overall package that it believes is well ahead of the opposition.

Both sites run autonomously, although the main company functions are controlled at Glastonbury, where a small management team, covering finance, operations and purchasing, ensures that decisions are acted on rapidly. There is full utilisation of facilities, so that both sites gain from each other’s strengths.

Mr Peryer explained: ‘When the Andover site was acquired, there was a fully automated Waco moulding line that had effectively been mothballed. This now produces the majority of all our PAR and bulk runs. At 120m/min, it’s capable of producing volumes in line with most other mills. It also means that at Glastonbury, where we’ve put in a new Weinig moulding line, we have been able to invest in bundling and packaging on a slightly slower line, which produces excellent quality and still maintains high overall volumes, as the line will package and bundle at full speed. Both sites concentrate on what they’re best at and both gain.’

Apart from the wide range of grades in PAR and mouldings, Snows offers sawn joinery from comprehensive stocks. In line with the current market, it has developed a range of decking sections and accessories, including newels, spindles and handrails, that fulfils the main requirements for most customers. ‘As you’d expect with our type of business philosophy, we go for a higher grade of redwood and larger than average sections.’ said Mr Peryer. ‘When this is combined with our latest investment in Tanalith E preservative, our customers know that it will meet their specifications now and in the future.’

Timber treatment has always had a role at Snows and it is structured so that Glastonbury works with Arch Timber Protection, developing the latest products such as Tanalith E, which works without chrome or arsenic. The existing Vac Vac plant will be switched over to Vacsol Aqua this year, ensuring that Snows is at the forefront of treatment technology. The Andover site also has treatment facilities, through the Protim water-based system.

Timber engineering

Timber engineering is growing in terms of sales mix for Snows and it is likely to continue to do so ahead of bulk timber sales. ‘Timber sales will always form a large part of our overall business,’ said Mr Peryer, ‘as our customer base includes many smaller merchants, shopfitters, joiners and other timber end users. But we have decided to invest heavily in areas that give us a speciality and timber engineering is our main speciality.’

To stay ahead in such a technical field requires a constant capital expenditure plan, so that new technology, in systems and products is continually added to the portfolio. With the arrival of engineered floors, together with an increase in glulam and timber frame, Snows has been quick to incorporate these products and market them to housebuilders and construction companies throughout southern England and Wales.

As part of its quest, using ever more powerful software and the latest hardware technology, design and estimating for both sites has been centralised at Glastonbury so that customers get the benefits of this new equipment, together with consistent pricing and product specification. It also means that the skills of its design team are all in one place, giving the customers better value for money by designing in benefits and savings. Snows supplies complete packages on engineered products, including all ancillary bracing and metalwork.

Roof trusses are the main sector of the timber engineering business, but I-beams and Gang Nail Ecojoists are taking an increasing share of sales. At Glastonbury a new factory has been fitted out for Gang Nail Ecojoist production and a full timber frame production line has been added. ‘These products are rapidly growing in demand, particularly from our larger housebuilder customers and we anticipate continued growth,’ said Mr Peryer. ‘The Gang Nail Ecojoists are such an advance on traditional joists, because site fixing times are reduced. You can fit soil pipes and other services through them while other work is going on and this helps streamline site production.’

I-beams have been around for some time but as timber frame continues to grow in popularity they will become incorporated in the specifications, by engineers who are used to calculating from known values. Traditional timber products have the inherent problem of large variances in strength and quality which, when added to the vagaries of some trade practice, can make them a less reliable product to specifiers.

Snows has been manufacturing timber frame wall panels in the new factory for some months and it can bring together the other engineered products as a complete package. It also takes it one more step away from being just a provider of standard timber items, where other suppliers want to slog away on price.

‘We’re still well known for our timber products, such as joists, where we have not seen any real downturn in demand, but we have not seen any radical increase either,’ said Mr Peryer. ‘As time moves on it makes sense for us to continue investing in our areas of speciality.’

Storage and distribution

At the Glastonbury site the huge depth of stocks in sawn joinery, prepared sections and mouldings, as well as carcassing and sheet materials are all stored in military fashion. There are two enormous hangar-style sheds, with a carcassing picking ground outside enabling comprehensive specifications to be selected rapidly by the crews, ready for dispatch on Snows’ own lorries.

Distribution plays an important part in the overall service to customers and Snows has a diverse fleet including curtain siders, crane offload flatbeds and trailers.

‘We try to ensure that we can look after any requirements for delivery made by our customers,’ said Mr Peryer, ‘and the sales team plays a big part in this through close liaison with them. We have seven sales people out all of the time, from Andover and Glastonbury, looking after existing and new customers, on all of the products that we sell, so they have to have excellent product knowledge.