Using wholesalers’ stock as your own gives your customers a wider choice, including all the new products, and improves your cash flow 

One of the reasons for the continuing success of man-made quartz composites is that the makers of it produce a continual stream of new colours and textures to attract people to it. The latest from Technistone, one of the quartz brands sold by wholesalers B-Stone from their base in Northampton, is a translucent range.

That there is a demand for back-lit translucent material has been demonstrated by the growing popularity of natural onyx. Why wouldn’t the quartz producers cash in on that?

Roger Lill, who this month (March) celebrates his second year in charge of B-Stone in the UK for the Belgian owners, says quartz products now account for half of B-Stone’s turnover (which has doubled in the time he has been there, although he anticipates that this will be a year of consolidation).

“There’s certainly something driving the sales of quartz,” he told NSS from the new 3,000m² warehouse that B-Stone moved into at the end of 2007 following the move from their previous premises that were developed for housing. “Whether it’s TV and magazine related or not I don’t know, but there are enormous benefits to quartz.”

As well as the lively Technistone products made in the Czech Republic, B-Stone also have exclusivity on the more subdued Diresco range that is made in Belgium and is often presented as a more resilient alternative to limestone.

Roger, who, like his predecessor at B-Stone, Dennis Verlinde, comes from outside the stone industry, brings to the business skills in logistics that help make sure worktop fabricators get their materials on time.

Coming from outside the industry he can see the advantages of both quartz and natural materials. He says the advantages of manufactured materials stem from their consistency. Unlike natural stone, a small sample will always be representative of the whole finished worktop. And it is consistent to work as well as to look at, with no softer or harder areas suddenly appearing to complicate sawing and polishing.

When quartz was first introduced, masons using it complained that it wore out expensive diamond tools more rapidly than granite, but the makers of diamond tools have addressed that issue.

And stone processors have now, by and large, stopped complaining that quartz is not a natural product. The stone processor’s skills are needed to work quartz and most have taken it on board – and been pleasantly surprised by its success. Rather than seeing granite sales replaced by quartz they have seen overall sales grow.

“Even in the time I have been involved in the industry,” says Roger, “I have seen more and more people buying quartz – people who used to say they would stick with natural granite.”

He understands the thinking behind the objections. At one time he ran his own cabinetmaking business and there was the same objection to using what were then relatively new board materials such as MDF and chipboard. Traditionalists wanted to use solid wood. Then people wanted melamine surfaces on the boards. “We didn’t want to do it. It was part of the reason we closed the business down,” he says.

He felt the man-made materials then were a move down-market that he did not want to take, but he says quartz is not like that, not least because it is not generally cheaper than granite. But with half B-Stones sales still coming from natural materials, as tiles as well as slabs, Roger certainly does not dismiss granite, limestone, marble and slate.

He says: “Quartz doesn’t have the character of granite. It doesn’t have the depth of something like Spectralite… but then you don’t get the inherent problems of vents, nor of two worktops from the same slab looking different.

“I’m sure granite will always have a place. There are always going to be people who insist on having the natural material. Some people value its differences. They like the character and the fact that each piece is unique.”

But whether it is natural stone or man-made quartz, slab or tiles, B-Stone have even more of it on offer since they moved into their new, brighter warehouse that is double the size of their old premises. It presents a good atmosphere for fabricators to send their customers to in order to choose the slabs they want their kitchen worktops made from.

And with the downturn Roger believes wholesalers will have a more important role to play in helping fabricators improve their cash flow by not having to hold large stocks themselves but still being able to offer a large choice to their customers.

B-Stone keep about 3,000 slabs of 350 different natural and quartz materials in stock at any one time – and you can see what actually is in stock in their warehouse, rather than a library shot of a piece of stone, on their website.

The website also has a trade area with prices and for the end user a supplier locator that identifies fabricators who are B-Stone’s customers in any particular part of the UK.

As well as their warehouse in Northampton with its two delivery trucks, B-Stone also have Veronique Rousseau, their Sales Manager in the South East and Simon Notman selling to the rest of the UK, including Northern Ireland. They would be delighted to arrange to pay you a visit.

B-Stone also have the back-up of a 30,000m2 warehouse on an 18-acre site in Belgium, which is only a quick trip through the Channel Tunnel away if a customer is looking for materials, or quantities of it, that are not available in the UK. In Belgium, BMB, whose directors established the British company, import blocks from all over the world to process in their two 7,500m2 factories.

Roger Lill says he has thoroughly enjoyed his foray into the stone industry. “I like it enough to want to stay in it,” he says.

Tel: 01604 585848