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AkzoNobel, for example, which includes
Sikkens and Dulux in its brands, saw an encouraging upturn in demand at the end of 2020, which continued throughout 2021. “We are now experiencing extremely high levels of demand as the market recovers,” said Steven Sternberger, segment director wood coatings, adding that the company sees no signs of a reduction in the need for large, mixed-use building structures and corresponding woodworking items. AkzoNobel supplies its industrial wood coatings and adhesives via distributors and direct to customers, with direct supply being the major route and said that continuity of supply and high levels of service had been key during the pandemic. “All sectors of the coatings industry saw extreme global raw material shortages and potential supply disruptions in 2021,” said Mr Sternberger. “We have been able to manage our supply chain through our relationships with suppliers and customers alike. We are now seeing a more stable supply chain and look forward to further improvements this year.” Teknos GBI also cited raw material shortages as a challenge during 2021, but one that it had met.
“Thanks to the support and understanding from our customers, 2021 was a successful year for us,” said Jon Mears, Teknos GBI marketing manager.
“Throughout the year demand exceeded
supply. This is in large part due to the global raw material shortages which caused stock challenges. But our recovery has been strong and we are optimistic going into 2022.” He added that the industrial wood market is still core to Teknos GBI and that protecting that business had been a priority during the pandemic.
The professional decorator market continues to be a focus for Teknos and
the company aims to continue to grow its distributor network and build brand awareness during 2022. The number of independent decorating merchants stocking Teknos products across the UK and Ireland has increased to 27, up from 24 a year before. “We will continue to grow this number
slowly, yet deliberately,” said Mr Mears. “Ensuring excellent customer service and support is paramount to us, so we are careful to select stockists who share our values.” Remmers UK also saw an increase in demand following the initial drop in sales at the first lockdown of 2020. In particular, it saw an increase in demand for its brush applied coatings. The company, whose route to market is predominantly to the end users – mainly window and door manufacturers – said it is also increasing its online presence and with specialist distributors.
“Our wood coatings division is still a very strategic part of our organisation and continues to grow year-on-year,” said Paul Scott, industrial wood coatings divisional manager at Remmers UK.
Finishes specialist Osmo also experienced sales growth in 2021 and noted that the biggest growth was from its online resellers. “Although, we have continued to establish growth in opening more new high street accounts, too, which again shows greater brand awareness from both retail and trade wanting to source Osmo products,” said Paul Thompson, Osmo sales director. Netherlands-based Anker Stuy, which set up its UK sales and distribution base in 2019, agreed that 2021 had been “a dramatically improved year”. “We have about doubled our turnover,” said Dave Christie, general manager at Anker Stuy Coatings UK. “There was no slowdown [in 2021] whatsoever, apart from December, but even that was reasonable.”
The company’s main market is the joinery sector and Mr Christie agreed that the renovation boom had made its mark. “Much of the timber window industry focuses heavily on domestic and there has been a lot of money spent on self-build and refurbishment projects in 2021. It’s had a great knock-on effect for us.”
He added that the raw materials shortage had had an impact but that Anker Stuy had dealt with the challenge well and that it had been able to continue supply to all its customers without interruption. The company expects the UK business to account for “well over 5%” of its total turnover this year and has a longer term target of 15%, based on the pipeline of potential customers, including some of the major joinery companies. “We are doing very well acquiring the business of lots of smaller customers,” said Mr Christie. “The bigger ones take more time and then of course there is a step change in business as you acquire larger accounts. We are working on several of those and it’s going very well.” Anker Stuy is strongest in its exterior products and while it is still developing interior coatings as the market becomes more and more receptive to water-borne products, it doesn’t see this emphasis changing. “We don’t really have a business model for the interior coatings market at the moment,” said Mr Christie. “It is dominated by small kitchen door manufacturers and they require a lot of small amounts of product and bespoke colour changes all the time. It is dominated by smaller, local distribution chains and there is a huge amount of competition in that arena.”
AkzoNobel, on the other hand, has a fairly even split between its interior and exterior coatings across the globe – with regional strengths. ►
TEKNOS AIMS HIGH Teknos has been allocating more resources to the wind energy sector
“Sustainability is at the core of Teknos’ beliefs, so supporting the wind energy market is a great fit for our business,” said Jon Mears, Teknos GBI marketing manager. “We have developed several coatings specifically for the protection of wind turbines and we are currently tendering for large scale projects.” “Typically they have had people abseil down the blades to repaint them, but we have developed a system that can be used with robots.” ■
Above: Teknos has developed a system used by Rope Robotics, which specialises in making robots to carry out work at height
www.ttjonline.com | January/February 2022 | TTJ
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