INDUSTRY INDUSTRY VIEWS VIEWS
Collaboration – Together Really IS Better! In distribution, success is not only about stockholding or logistics, but the strength of collaboration. Working closely with manufacturers, retailers, and installers ensures the right products reach the right customers with efficiency and impact.
Partnerships bring real value. By combining design innovation from leading brands, such as our recent collaborations with VitrA and Abode, with a distributor’s reach, service infrastructure, and digital platforms, the whole chain benefits. Retailers gain access to wider choice and better service, while end-consumers enjoy products delivered quickly and reliably.
Collaboration also helps shape product development, with own-brand ranges informed by ongoing dialogue with customers and fitters to ensure they are both stylish and practical to install. Partnerships with brands, as we have with Fibo, further strengthen our offer, by adding complementary ranges to our own brands and ensuring a wide selection across categories and budgets, from entry-level to premium, giving retailers the flexibility to meet diverse customer needs. Beyond products, shared investment in service, whether in logistics, digital tools, or sustainability, everything depends on collaboration. New facilities, efficiency, customer choice, greener operations, and better delivery models all succeed when stakeholders work together.
Ultimately, collaboration is more than a way of working. It is a commitment to creating greater choice, stronger outcomes, and better service across the supply chain and for us it aligns perfectly with our corporate aim that “together we’re better”.
Comment by Brett Jenkinson, Head of Retail Customer Experience, PJH
Worktop Trends are Evolving
As we move further into 2025, we’re seeing real demand for nature-inspired designs as marble-effect worktops continue to capture the imagination of designers and consumers alike. The versatility of the trend is helping to fuel its appeal with the latest launches offering real diversity. Attention-grabbing designs such as our new Arabescato Vagli, which features dark and dramatic veining set against a classic white background, are becoming an increasingly popular choice as consumers look for striking, nature-inspired marble-effect designs that will make a stunning visual impression on worktops and splashbacks.
Comment by Simon Boocock, MD, CRL Stone
At the other end of the spectrum, consumers are embracing more muted marble- effect quartz surfaces to bring timeless elegance to the kitchen. This is where we’re seeing worktops such as our new Verona Gold, which has delicate gold veining on a creamy white background, leading the quiet luxury trend among homeowners keen to connect with nature in a calm yet
sophisticated way.
Ambience mirrors bring Hygge-style living to the UK bathroom
As the UK beauty and self-care industry continues to experience growth, today’s must-have bathroom products are being guided by outside influences such as lifestyle and user needs. With this in mind, ambience mirrors have become a bathroom essential in 2025, with new importance on accessories that create bathroom environments, which are both calm and rejuvenating.
With framed and unframed models available, consumers are opting for LED back-lit mirrors within the premium market as a way to enhance the luminosity of their bathroom and modify the light settings to suit their needs, such as brightness and temperature. The latest
standout features include touch-
activated controls for ease of use,
dimmable and CCT changeable light, which is energy efficient and user- oriented, multiple finish options to coordinate with existing brassware, as well as integrated demist funtionality, and IP44 rating to ensure the mirror is suitable in a damp or wet environment like the bathroom.
Comment by D David Boddy, Product Manager, Abode
4 BKU SEPTEMBER 2025
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