Engineered wood products giant Boise Cascade has unveiled its latest marketing tool, predictions for UK sales growth and longer-term plans to expand into Europe at a special press briefing .
Hosted by Boise Cascade UK managing director Mark Rees, the London event on April 25 was also attended by executives from the US; John Bender senior vice-president Boise building solutions and Tom Shew international engineered wood products manager.
Press representatives were shown a new 52-page technical guide for architects, engineers and developers. This provides technical details for BCI joists, Versa-Lam LVL and Versa-Rim plywood rim board which make up Boise Cascade Simple Frame flooring system, plus Versa-Strand OSB. It also includes product application instructions, illustrations and technical data.
UK sales manager Simon Jones said the book should become an industry ‘bible’ and backs up the company’s technical advice service at the 200,000sq ft distribution and processing centre in Upper Heyford it opened late last year.
With rising demand for engineered wood products, the recent conclusion of a national distribution deal with Jewson and Upper Heyford on stream, Mr Rees predicted further strong growth for Boise Cascade in the UK. Next it would look for similar success on the Continent.
‘At the moment we’d have to secure product approvals in each country in the EU,’ he said. ‘But once the new EU-wide Eurocodes are in place we’ll only need the one. So you can probably expect developments in the next year to 18 months. The market in mainland Europe for engineered wood products has tremendous potential and we’re looking to make significant inroads.’
He added that the company hoped to talk with Jewson owner Saint Gobain about European distribution possibilities.
