Boutique boards (and more)

Custom-made raw boards, faced boards, worktops, wall cladding, doors, door sets, flooring… This company makes them all – and they’re looking for partners in the UK.

Panel product distributors… large-scale furniture manufacturers… trade laminators… importers… take note! This article is about an incredible, family-owned boutique producer of panel products you will want to get to know, because what they produce and the services they offer are absolutely unique.

If you are currently buying raw MDF or chipboard in 8x4 or jumbo sheets and your nests mean there are always offcuts, this company could produce and supply exactly the size you need to eliminate waste, regardless of whether you need standard grades, MR MDF, HDF, FR MDF, Carb Phase 2, E0.5 or FSC. It can supply any panel either as raw board or laminated with any décor from a huge range. It can even produce black-dyed MDF and HDF.

If you need worktops, it can provide standard or custom dimensions with standard or 2mm radius (almost square-edged) profiles in a range of on-trend finishes – and it offers matching splashbacks and boards in various colours from which to manufacture carcases if you want a fully-coordinated look.

If you need veneered boards, it will source, cut and laminate. Send your own pattern and you can even have your own L’art del Legno veneered panels made to order.

It manufactures doors and door sets and can match them to wall panels, wall cladding, acoustic cladding or flooring from its vast product range – perfect for a hotel or corporate office fit-out. And décors… you want Synchro woodgrains, marbles, on-trend designs? Dozens are available. You want your own twist? Their specialist designer will coordinate with paper suppliers to provide all the product differentiation you need. PET or acrylic in 1mm thick gloss or supermatt? You can have either laminated to both sides of a panel if you wish.

And if you are a distributor and you need a showroom from which to present the full gamut of products and services on offer, they will send a designer to measure up, discuss what you need, and manufacture a unique showroom for you using a dedicated facility in one of their four factories. You may even find it arrives on a pallet that’s been manufactured using MDF and chipboard offcuts on a machine designed and made by an engineering division that’s part of the same group.

And the name of this remarkable company?

The Alfawood Group.

“It all began back in 1974 with a small panel saw,” Agis Karakostas, Alfawood’s Export Manager tells me. “We now have four factories producing MDF, moisture-resistant MDF, HDF, fire-retardant MDF, Carb Phase 2, E0.5 and FSC. We have a factory producing raw chipboard, we have presses and we have a new impregnation line, so we buy printed paper décors and we impregnate our own melamine film. We have another factory where we produce briquettes and pellets, and our main factory where we produce all the value-added products that maximise profits for our customers.”

Among Alfawood’s more unusual value-added products is veneered and CPL wall cladding. “There are six different colours of CPL but we also produce matching panels in MFC or melamine-faced MDF so you can make any type of furniture to match – and, using the same décor, we can supply doors, which is perfect for a hotel fit-out. We make complete doors ready to be installed, or we can provide the components like the door frame and the MDF panel for anyone that produces their own. This is something unique to Alfawood.

“Our regular production wall cladding is oak veneered and we keep it in stock, so if someone wants five pieces, 10 pieces, 20 pieces in different designs, we can supply to order. However, if our customer needs a different profile – say a circle, or a polygon – we can discuss that and subject to the quantity he needs, we can create a special design for him. Our current wall cladding can be supplied with veneer, or in CPL. If the customer doesn’t like oak and wants a walnut in a different profile, we draw it, we put it through production to test it and see whether the material meets our quality standards, then we present it to the customer and he gets a unique product. We also manufacture an acoustic option.

“Our value-added products include a range of worktops. Uniquely, we offer a corner radius of just 2mm, which is made by using a special Polyurethane glue on the post-formed curve that prevents any breakage. We also produce kitchen worktops using black HDF in 19mm thickness, as well as compact in 12mm thickness, which you can also use for tables in restaurants, or as washroom cubicle dividers. We produce regular 28 or 38mm thickness, moisture-resistant worktops – three different types, all made in our own factories.

“Because we are a boutique manufacturer, we are much more flexible than larger producers. If someone needs a different length that isn’t standard, for example, it can be discussed. Our standard dimension is 420cm In length by 60cm in width, but the width could be 80cm or up to one meter for an island, and it can be post-formed on both sides. But if a company wants something different, it can be done. This is a major advantage of working with our company: we offer flexibility in production and we can customise products. We are open to discuss different lengths, different widths and different thicknesses with our customers. Once we understand what they need, we can take it to production and confirm what is possible very quickly and, if it falls outside our standard production range, what the minimum order quantity and lead time will be.

“We can provide splashbacks in the same colours as worktops and matching board to make cabinets. The entire kitchen can be coordinated to make a unique scheme.

“We offer melamine-faced MDF and melamine-faced chipboards in a wide range of colours and textures, including Synchro panels that we produce in oak and ash, which have the look and feel of real wood – and our recent investment in a Barberan printing line means we can also produce printed 2.7mm MDF for cabinet backs, which can also be customised.” The Barberan line, which is used for laminating MDF or HDF with PET or acrylic gloss and matt, is part of a 40 million Euro investment over the last two years that also includes a new Wemhöner pressing line.

“With us, customers can order a variety of products and they can reorder according to their needs. It’s not necessary for them to hold stock. We can make an entire container for them if they want it, but we can also feed the stock two or three pallets at a time, as they need it. If it’s regular production, they can pull off stock we hold. Of course, if it’s a customised product, a special width, a special length, it’s a different story. Then we have to talk about production lead time and minimum quantities. But in terms of our standard production, for example, we can put one palette of Synchro 18m with two palettes of PET matt or PET gloss, a palette of laminate flooring, a pallet of worktops and a pallet of veneered panels in different species on a lorry. If our customer is a furniture producer, this material goes directly to their production and not into stock. Knowing their own needs, they can reorder once a month, twice a month, three times a month, or whenever works for them. “Another product we offer is L’art del Legno veneered panels in different patterns. A designer can give us the pattern they want, which we can test in our production and make a veneer sheet. If they like it and confirm, then we can produce it. This product will be unique to them.”

Our tour of the main factory ends at the showroom, and what a showroom it is. I’d expected to see products displayed in different family groups but what I did not expect was the imaginative displays that demonstrated how products made by Alfawood Group could be used in ways that extended their versatility beyond their intended use: flooring used as window surrounds; woodgrain décors used to clad ceiling supports; wall cladding curved around the perimeter of a bar unit. “This is the work of our designer, Alexandros Tsinidis,” Agis tells me. “We welcome distributors who are interested in our product and invite them to visit our production and see our showroom. If they like what they see and want to introduce our product, Alexandros can design and build a showroom for them that will demonstrate to their clients what we offer. There is a special area in the factory where we build exhibition stands and showrooms.” Now, if you’re thinking all this sounds too good to be true and there has to be a catch, let me assure you, there isn’t. Although Alfawood Group is based in Greece and Greece doesn’t provide FSC certificates, Alfawood’s eco credentials are impeccable. “We work with forest management companies that produce FSC logs and follow the whole chain,” Agis confirms. “Not only are FSC products available, every factory in the group generates its own electricity through biomass. We collect biomass from the forests in Greece, helping to prevent fires. The biomass is burned to produce thermochemical energy that we use to heat oil for the presses and electricity for the factories. Our VOC emissions to the atmosphere are very low because we use very high technology filters.” Alfawood even sells electricity back to the grid.

For more information on what Alfawood could do for you, email Agis on akarakostas@alfawood.gr or call him on +30 695 847 6533.