Made In Britain: A Truly British Family

As a British manufacturer, a British owned company and a family run business, we were very excited this morning to see BBC Breakfast covering a story about a family who have pledged to only buy British made products for a full year. The family will be blogging about their journey on their own blog site www.britishfamily.co.uk.

The family were driven to this extreme following recent press stories, highlighting some major international brands and retailers who have allegedly avoided paying taxes. The family have already gotten off to a challenging start, with many of the products they have come across, being somewhat misleading in their packaging – they perhaps carry a Union Jack on their packaging, but have in fact been manufactured overseas. Likewise, when doing their weekly supermarket shop they are discovering many products which have been grown or prepared overseas, but then are marked as being ‘packaged in Britain’.

As an earlier backer of Stove UK’s Made in Britain Campaign, this is a subject that is close to our hearts. There are many reasons as to why we should be supporting British Manufacturers. There are of course the obvious reasons: by buying British you are supporting the UK economy, UK manufacturing and local jobs. In the current economic climate, this can only be a positive. But if that isn’t reason enough, here are some of our thoughts on why you should choose British bathrooms products specifically:

Minimising impact on the Environment

Buying products that have been manufactured in the UK ensures the carbon footprint of a product is kept to a minimum, in several ways:

• The carbon produced when shipping products.
• The carbon produced as part of the production process. Within the UK we have legislation in place which ensures we strive to minimise our impact on the environment.
• In developing economies (where outsourced manufacture may often take place), these countries don’t have the same environmental legislation in place as we are used to in the UK, which aims to keep carbon output to a minimum.

Product Compatibility

Products that have been designed and manufactured in the UK, for the UK, are made specifically with the British bathroom in mind:

• Many UK bathrooms (older properties in particular) often have walls that are out of true, so they are designed with some adjustment to allow for this.
• UK bathrooms are often small in size, we create products to work around any space restrictions so that no matter what size or shape bathroom you have, both a showering and bathing facility can be included.
• We have spent time solving common problems in UK housing stock such as door frame positions and window height and widths – these are specific problem solving products that exist solely for the UK market.
• Finally, we also understand the way we tile and often work with recessed trays, so the enclosures are deigned to suit this for a straight-forward installation.

Product Suitability

British manufacturers are aware of design trends and habits in the bathroom and create products which look stylish and appealing to this market, but that are also practical for users:

• We constantly review the changing demographics which have led to an aging population, and create products to suit our customers. Often this can be easy access products which look stylish and modern.
• We also consider how we use the bathroom in the UK as a place to escape to. There has been a clear shift in bathroom design to a stylish hotel inspired retreat – we design products to suit this trend.

Flexibility

For our trade customers, we are able to be much more flexibility in terms of volume variants, lead times and minimum order quantities.

Product Quality

We have much greater control over quality and carefully monitor the quality of all our products, in a way that would not be possible if we were to manufacture them overseas.

The trend which began several years ago, towards buying British products, certainly seems to be continuing. It’s great to see so many people now being passionate about sourcing and buying products which are Made in Britain! We’d love to hear your ‘Made in Britain’ thoughts or stories.