Leigh Martin, managing director at TruBlue

How’s business been for you over the last 12 months or so?

 It’s been absolutely astonishing, to be honest. We’ve doubled our recurring revenue every year that we’ve been live. And I’d say that as much as that’s because of the things that we’re doing right, it’s also because of the things of the competition are doing wrong. So if you put the two together, then it’s a golden opportunity for us.

What are some of the challenges that you’re seeing in the market right now?

Well, there seems to be financial challenges. We’re at a price point that’s much lower than the competition. But it’s still a struggle for a lot of these retailers to basically pay the money. So we do notice a lot of them are cutting back quite a bit to be honest.

What kind of opportunities do you think are out there in the market?

It’s a challenge. A lot of our competition has been around for a long, long time. Some of the technology’s quite old. So having a brand new company into the market, you know, either because they want something more technologically advanced, or they’re just frankly bored of what they’ve been using the last 20 years, we hear a lot of that. If they get over the fear of change, which a lot of them do suffer from, and move into a new cloud-based platform, they find there are a lot of advantages.

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James de Boer, head of marketing, Blanco UK

How’s business been?

Over the past year, there are some of our customers who are doing really really well, and some who are struggling a little bit in in the current climate. But for us as a brand, we’re pushing out new innovation and we’re going to be continuing to do that as well. We really want to be the go-to brand in front of mind for all of our customers with everything to do with the kitchen water place. We’re not looking to leave that, and our whole dedication is on that part of the kitchen. That’s our expertise.

What’s your assessment of the market right now?

I think it’s different depending on who you speak to. From a marketing point of view, I want retailers to push new products, because I think that’s what gets people into showrooms. Releasing the innovation that’s out there for customers gives them more motivation to want to upgrade. Or maybe if they’re thinking: ‘my kitchen is older than I expected,’ or ‘This is going to save me a load of time’. We’re really trying to encourage them to make the most of that.

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Rachel Tucky, chief product and marketing officer, Häfele UK

So, how’s business been over the past 12 months for Häfele?

I think the market’s been challenging, but we always use the phrase ‘cautiously optimistic’. And we have performed as well as it can be expected, within the marketplace, and we have a strong start to 2026. So, as we say, with consumer confidence being low – and with some of the challenges that the industry’s facing at the moment – it’s more about what can we do to help support the industry and to help usher in all those products that consumers really want.

What do you think the biggest challenges are for retailers right now?

From a business perspective, with the increase of costs and things with like national insurance, that’s obviously going to put pressure on them from a financial respect. With all the changes from a consumer driven perspective, and with consumer confidence being low, we’ve just heard that three quarters of people don’t want to move house. But 40% of those people do want to make home improvements. It’s all about how do we tap into those homeowners? And how do we help our customers to tap into those opportunities and really maximise them as much as possible?

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Katie Cope, Showerwall head

How’s business been for you over the last 12 months?

We’ve been doing really, really well and things have been very exciting. We’ve connected with a lot of new customers and there’s a massive passion and you can feel the acceleration there. I’d describe it’s energetic. You know, we have to run fast, and that’s that’s what we’re doing. But we’re developing every day, which is good. We’re building new new relationships, but also reconnecting with the old relationships that in the past have been really good and strong. It takes a lot of time for people to gain trust in you, because reliability is so important. What I can say about the whole team is the level of passion that is within it, I think is just quite rare, really. And that energy repeats throughout the factory as well. So it’s everybody feels as if they’ve put their heart in Showerwall.

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Stephen Johnson, managing director, Quooker UK

So, how’s business been for you for the last 12 months?

Business has been good. We’re very fortunate that we’re in a category that grows. So outside of the market conditions, there’s always an opportunity for us to grow the business. We had a really good 2025 with double digit growth of 15% last year, which was incredible. I think there’s always new people coming into market. There’s always new opportunities. It keeps on going, people move, people update, people change. So for us, it’s an exciting category because even at the size we’re at, there’s still people that we are educating on better ways to deliver boiling water than with a kettle.

So what are some of the challenges you think retailers are seeing right now?

I think there’s a lack of confidence in the market. I don’t think the UK economy is perhaps performing as well as it should do. So there’s apprehension. There are people short of spare cash. And I think that brings pressure particularly on items like kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms. But listen, I’m an optimistic person. And even in a diminishing market, there’s still this year going to be millions of kitchens sold. So what does that mean for me? It means you’ve got to be better than everybody else. You’ve got to have a better offer, a better product. Give a better service. If you do, then there’s enough business there. But it’s a case of being hungry and going to find it. Mindset is the absolute be-all and end-all, and you’ve got to be driven to see how you can improve. The most important thing I’ve learned is we can double this business, the only limiting thing is mindset.

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Kate Van Der Meulen, marketing executive, Wex Trade

How’s business been over the last 12 months?

It’s been good. It’s been steady. Obviously, where we’ve got achallenging economic environment, which everybody is sort of battling their way through, but from our perspective, we’re set ourselves up in a very good place over the last few years and we’ve got a service proposition which covers and supports and all our worktop partners from products right through to fabrication and delivery. So it’s meant that we’re in a really good position to facilitate and offer them what they need. We also have a wide range of products at different price points, which helps the customer looking for a worktop panel. And also for our showroom customers, those price points and those options just make it a lot easier for people to shop with us.

What are the biggest challenges you see independent retailers facing right now?

I think it’s the footfall through the door. That’s the biggest challenge. So, again, that comes back to the fact that we’ve got a breadth of products and different types of work services and patterns. We think that’ll help get people in the door with choice, backed up with the service proposition. It just makes the whole partnership with us a lot more seamless. We’ve got that offering that means that people can go for those bolder patterns, but we’re continuing to offer the staple basics, which we know that our customers like and always want to. And have clearly worked for a long time and we’ll continue to, yeah. exactly, yes, it’s important to make sure that, you have that choice and we can appeal to all types of kitchen designers and custom tastes.

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Charlie Graham, head of sales, Carlisle Brass

How would you say business has been for you guys over the past 12 months?

It’s been tremendous to be honest. We’ve been opening up into new markets across the globe as well. The UK market is prosperous, to be honest, contrary to popular belief. And we can only anticipate further growth within the brand and the company.

What are the big challenges you’re seeing in the market at the moment?

I think retailers at the moment, from my perspective, are bombarded by choice, to be honest, which ultimately does delay client purchasing. So we look to kind of simplify the offering that we give on the market by just giving a total range from your entry level all the way up to your affordable luxury levels. Just being able to give customers that one choice supplier where you get every product for your hardware and accessory needs.

What are some of the opportunities you think retailers could take advantage of in 2026?

Retailers need to be looking at the broader products offering that we can essentially offer and other brands as well can offer. You know, it is not just the one product that people are known for, people do actually have a wide array of products within their offering. So by coming to a show like this, you can clearly see the opportunities, new products, ultimately a way of either maximising the value of products all by ultimately creating saving as well.

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Mike Bennet, head of channel marketing, House of Rohl

How’s business been for you over the last 12 months?

There’s been lots of changes in the business to future proof things, lots and lots of investment. But the market’s been a bit slow, I think everyone’s aware of that. But we’ve just focused on doing what I can do, streamlining our sales here, making sure that we’ve got the right structure in place to continue to bring new products to market.

What are the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the market?

I suppose it’s that consumer negativity, I suppose. You turn the news on every day, and that has an impact to spend, right? I think people are aware of the cost of living and things like that. So there’s been a knock on effect, but people are still willing to pay for quality. People still demand bespoke service and that customer service. I think we focus on that, the rest will come. And I think we’re really confident in our retailers and we’ve just been supporting them as best we can. Making sure they’ve got the right sales team behind them, supporting them, giving them the tools that they need. The market’s down but we’ve invested heavily in a new centre of excellence, so we’ve clearly still got a lot of faith in the market.

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Tom Wheeler, head of national sales, Hampton Kitchens

How’s business been over the past 12 months or so?

Great. We’re a business that’s in growth. So yeah, I can’t complain, things are moving forward. There’s no denying it’s turbulent out there, and we have been growing and we’ve been putting in a lot of foundation work behind the scenes. We’ve got product guides, technical information, and brochures to build a brand that we can stand behind and take to market to our customers. Now, we’ve done all that foundation work, so now is the time to really shout about what Hampton kitchens can do. We officially launched four or five years ago, but we’re now well established.

What are the biggest challenges in the market right now, do you think?

It’s just unpredictable. And you know, it has been since COVID. In our industry, you used to be able to set your watch by when you’ll be busy, when you’ll be quiet. Down to the month, down to the week. And that just seems to have disappeared and it’s still like it, you know, there is no rhyme nor reason behind when someone’s busy or when someone’s quiet anymore. I could speak to 10 customers and five of them will be rushed off their feet and five of them will say it’s been like a desert.

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Darren Blackburn, southern business development manager, Bagnodesign

How’s business been over the last 12 months?

There’s been a restructure of our retail strategy. We’ve found that strategy has gone from strength to strength strength. So we’re really beginning to see the fruits of that labour in the past 18 months. I myself, I’m a new edition, as part that strategy. As we have more staffing areas we need more and more coverage. We’ve opted to go back to bricks and mortar Showrooms, working specifically with selected retailers in certain geographic areas. Because we want to work in partnership with our retailers rather than a very much scatter gun approach. If we can find the right retailers and work on the same strategy, it bodes really well for decent business figures.

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Matt Phillips, head of UK operations, Rotpunkt

And how’s the last 12 months been?

I would say we are slightly above average. We’re showing growth, and listening to people in the industry we’re hearing a lot about what has been a challenging 12 months. Fortuntately, we’ve found that our customers have performed or out-performed the market and we’ve seen a small growth – but growth is growth, so we’re taking it as a win.