Timber supplier ‘keeps calm and carries on’ to record sales growth

A North Nottinghamshire-based supplier of timber roofing materials for the housebuilding industry has reported year-on-year double-digit sales growth for the first half of 2020.

Huthwaite company SR Timber – which is an importer of timber products and the UK’s largest importer of roofing batten, saw sales grow by more than 10% between January and July this year compared with the same period last year.

SR Timber’s trading director Shaun Revill says that feedback from customers in both the merchant and contracting sectors suggests that the company’s reserves of stock and the speed at which it can deliver lorry loads of batten are the key reasons for this growth.

“Since Brexit, we’ve adopted a ‘keep calm and carry on’ approach and have concentrated on the things that we can control – and our approach to the pandemic has been no different,” said Revill.

“We know we have a quality, market-leading batten product and a robust supply chain, which means that we always have a continuous process of raw material being turned into fully graded batten at our sawmill, consignments of batten being shipped to the UK and stock being held at three UK ports, from which we deliver to customers up and down the country. Not even a pandemic has stopped this process.

“This unrivalled capability has really come to the fore as the UK economy has started emerging from lockdown. We have been in the right place at the right time to service our customers and supply them with the quantities of batten they need, when they need them.”

Recently, SR Timber calculated that at any one time, it is holding enough stock in the UK that – if batten lengths were laid end to end – it would go around the equator 1½ times. This level of stock holding and availability, the company says, has enabled merchants and contractors to respond to demands of their housebuilding customers.

Revill said that the secret to SR Timber’s continued growth and success is all down to looking after its customers.

“I’m very proud of this business and the team at SR Timber because we continue to grow and be successful, despite all the hurdles that keep getting in our way, such as Brexit and the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19,” he said.