For those who don’t know, what’s the history behind Lubina?

So, mum and dad had been in the industry for years. They had a retail showroom called Rose Kitchens, and they started a bit of manufacturing on the side. Eventually they made the decision to go into that full time, so officially Lubina was born in 1994. We love being a small kitchen and bedroom business – when we celebrated the 30^th year last year we had five of the team who have been here for over 20 years, so in a way, I’ve grown up around a lot of the team.

Where did you start with the company?

Officially I started as sales manager in 2005, but as it’s a family business I’ve been around the business for years. In the summer holidays I was always in the factory knocking in cams and dowels. When I left school, I started on the road looking after existing customers, making sure they understood the products. Organically, over time, I ended up doing less and less time on the road.

And how did that transition to you becoming managing director?

Probably a year or two before Covid, I was in the office maybe more than I was on the road, essentially running things alongside dad. We shut down like everyone else through that time, and when everything re-opened, dad started to step back a little bit. He was already quietly semi-retiring, so I started doing more and more, but there was never really a formal discussion about handover. In a way, I’ve unofficially been the MD for about five years, but I think that’s quite common in small family businesses.

Where do you find most of your clients?

Most of it’s through word of mouth. It’s all trades, so we supply retail showrooms, developers, small builders, architects and interior designers as well. Our order schedule is pretty much split 50-50 between developers and retailers.I t’s a great way of doing business, because the developer side is a lot more predictable – we know the number of units in each kitchen, we know the door range, and things like that – but then we see the really creative side from the retailers’ orders. They might want a pantry with a bespoke designed interior, plus made to measure aspects to every other unit in the kitchen.

And what do you think sets you apart from other suppliers?

For us, it’s always been about the made to measure aspect. We can do standard units standing on our heads essentially, as can every other manufacturer. But we’ve always diversified in that way because that’s just what customers have wanted. And for us we’re making every unit individually anyway, so why can we not make that unit deeper? Or change the void on that unit? A lot of manufacturers publicise they can do three different depths, and I always think: “Just three?”. It’s the same with carcass colours – a lot of manufacturers say they offer 10 or 20, but I think we did about 100 last year.

Is that appreciated by your customers?

The fact that we are a bit smaller, for us, creating those relationships and building those partnerships is really important for us. I think when you’re talking repeatedly to the same people all the time and we have got a small team and they know they can either get hold of me or they can get hold of our works director. Especially the local ones, they just pop in. We really know your business, or we know that particular order for example, or we like to hear about the challenges that you’re facing. That’s exactly how we want to be, and on a national scale, I think companies like Blum or PWS have really cultivated that customer-first approach as well.

So what’s next for Lubina?

The next year especially is really about investment in the team, machinery and transport. So we’ve got a new edge banding machine coming in, new lorries coming in, and we’ll have two new team members joining the warehouse. It’s not so much tipping everything on its head, as it is consciously updating things – we’re evolving, really.