Leading UK timber supplier, Premier Forest Products, is celebrating a strong financial year, despite challenging market factors.
Having experienced rapid growth in the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the timber sector has faced a tougher period recently, which has had an impact on profits industry-wide.
To counteract this, Premier Forest has invested heavily in acquisitions and internal growth, increasing their team to over 400 across 19 sites UK-wide.
CEO and Co-Founder Terry Edgell, said: “The past two years have brought many challenges to our top line growth as we have seen continued depreciation of product value, but core volume has increased, thanks to aggressive and targeted growth in market share by our sales teams. In a tumultuous time for the timber industry, the value of group turnover has remained static, propped up by our acquisitive policies and underlying volume growth, which must be celebrated.
“Acquisitions have always been at the heart of our growth plan, whether in response to customer demand or to scale the business’s reach. This year we’ve successfully expanded our product range and geographical presence, with new sites in Essex and London serving a host of new customers.”
Premier Forest acquired Bitus UK from Swedish company Bergs Timber in November, followed by Stairway Joinery Ltd, a specialist in the design and manufacture of bespoke staircases for residential and commercial buildings. They also secured a 51% stake in Fforest Timber Engineering.
In the last 12 months, Premier Forest has invested heavily in machinery capabilities, investing over £1million in equipment across the business, specifically at the Duchy Timber, Premier Forest Haverfordwest and Decorpanel Newport branches.
They have also focused on product launches, with the Premier Platinum range of fencing timber, specifically targeted at the agricultural sector, released in September, and a new range of acoustic fence panels launched in July.
Most recently, Premier Forest has introduced the world’s first fire-retardant and water-resistant plywood, DryGuard FR in February 2025. The one-of-a-kind product was exclusively created in response to customer demand.
Terry said: “Innovation is key to future-proofing the business. We’ve taken advantage of the tough market conditions of the last year and have invested in ourselves, enabling us to be well placed to deal with upturn in demand.
“We are anticipating a period of rapid turnover growth as a result of our recent acquisitions, alongside a period of product inflation in timber that will drive organic value; this will either arise on the back of demand generated by the anticipated house build policy, or from a further curtailment of production across the world as we have already seen in the last 12 months. Our investment over the last year will have placed us in a great position to deal with the upturn and ensure we retain our position as a market leader across the UK.”
Premier Forest Products is a vertically integrated timber operation engaged in the importation, processing, machining, engineering and wholesale distribution of timber and timber products from its multiple sites in the UK.
