TIMBER
FACE FORWARD AT 50
Engineered wood panel manufacturer MEDITE SMARTPLY is celebrating 50 years of making MDF for the global market, as Oliver Stanley discovers.
M F 24
DF manufacturer MEDITE SMARTPLY has chosen the anniversary banner: “Trusted for 50 years. Built for what’s
next”, as a way of celebrating its 50 years of making medium-density-fibreboard. MEDITE
MDF has seen countless product innovations the wood-based panel sector since the brand’s conception.
Spotlighting its core lines; MEDITE PREMIER, MEDITE MR and MEDITE TRICOYA EXTREME (MTX), MEDITE aims to showcase how long-
PREMIER FOREST PRODUCTS TARGETS STRATEGIC GROWTH
Following a year of expansion, Premier Forest Products is aiming to strengthening its timber processing position.
or timber processing group Premier Forest Products, the past year has been heavily defined by the successful integration of acquisitions, including timber engineering specialist National Timber Systems and multiple former Arnold Laver sites from National Timber Group England. Following its recent acquisitions, the business is expected to achieve revenues of £125m for the year ending April 2026, with annualised turnover expected to reach £200m next year.
Headcount within Premier Forest has
grown from approximately 400 employees to almost 800 across the group following the acquisitions, while the HR function has doubled in size to support workforce development.
The company has also strengthened its senior leadership team through a series of strategic appointments and promotions, including the promotion of Neil Davies from chief financial officer to chief financial and operating officer.
Alongside commercial performance, Premier Forest’s ESG commitments are increasingly
influencing customer relationships and procurement opportunities. The business continues to expand programmes around its corporate parenting scheme with a new cohort joining the group in July, its prisoner rehabilitation scheme, military covenant commitments and employment support initiatives, with these projects now forming an important part of major framework discussions and tender opportunities.
Terry Edgell, co-founder & CEO of Premier Forest Products, said: “The market has remained difficult for many businesses,
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net August 2026
term customer trust goes hand-in-hand with ongoing product innovation and expansion. Managing director, Chris King explains: “I believe the main reasons for its continuing success are product quality, product relevance, and our longstanding relationships, with customers and a clear focus on the markets and the sectors within which we operate. “Our focus on the markets and the sectors, and investment in the customer relationships has allowed us to be profitable, largely over the business cycles. We’re working within an industry and that goes up and down, but that’s creates that opportunity for us to go on and be bold with our research, development, innovation, and to bring new products to the market. Whether we’ve investing in moisture resistant solutions, flame retardment solutions, those have all been pioneering developments within the product category through the years that have allowed us to demonstrate that core leadership in innovation as we’ve gone along the decades.”
MEDITE’s 50-year heritage is directly linked to its continuous investment in quality, sustainability and regulatory readiness, King explains. “We’re very much more focused on what today tomorrow and the future will bring. We’re celebrating 50 years by announcing a 75-million-euro investment in a new Clonmel facility, in Ireland, which is actually the largest investment in MDF capability in Western Europe at this point in time. Essentially, instead of throwing a party, what we’re actually doing is making a really big
Terry Edgell & Neil Davies
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
