With a new building to accommodate growth, fresh recruits, range expansion and planned growth overseas, Bond It is having what can comfortably described as a busy 2020. David Moore, Bond It Managing Director and Founder, speaks with Torque Magazine...
West Yorkshire building chemical specialist Bond It is one of those rare beasts – a UK manufacturer – producing a wide range of silicones, adhesives, water‐based, solvent based products, liquids, tapes, cements and much more.
“We are one of the few that does all that as a full manufacturer,” explains Bond It Managing Director and Founder, David Moore. “Over 85% of what we make is made here in Elland.”
Moore started the business in 2002 with around 12 office staff, a small Production unit and a handful of salesman: “We were turning over approximately one million in the first year, but since then we have achieved annual double‐digit growth on average. If you look at the last four years, we have grown by 13.5% per annum.
“Now we have 105 employees and we recently have taken on our fourth building to accommodate more machinery, stock holding space and finished goods. We currently operate from a site that is in excess of 130,000 sq feet.”
“When you grow on average 10%‐plus we not only have to respond to improving the infrastructure of the business but personnel is key too. We pride ourselves on offering people a career rather than just a job. We have embraced apprenticeships, we work with Jobcentre Plus and we are a Disability Confident employer. We have encouraged career path advancement and most of the management team have been promoted from within so there is a wealth of knowledge between the key decision makers.”
However, Bond It believes that with a continually changing market certain expertise cannot always come from within. This has led to the expansion of the technical team, and the appointment of a new Technical Manager, Simon Hodgson: “Sometimes you need to bring in technical knowledge – you can’t make someone a PhD in chemistry, so you have to go out to the market. This is an exciting opportunity for the company and we are hoping that the new team, headed up by Simon, will accelerate plans for new innovative product development.”
The industry frequently has legislation changes to contend with (with more expected thanks to Brexit). This affects changes to both permitted chemicals and to labelling. “We are always throwing packaging away thanks to legislation changes imposed upon us and that’s why we have taken on someone who also understands all about the new legislation coming in and is part of the BASA set‐up (British Association Sealant and Adhesives).”
At time of speaking in mid‐August, Bond It had some sales staff on part‐time furlough, but the firm has also had to bring in extra staffing thanks to Covid‐19: “We had to increase our production staff with four new people as we’ve been selling lots of products that tend to be much more labour intensive. We’ve also had to employ two more pickers in the warehouse to cope with the amount of orders that have been coming through.”
Covid: Disruption, DIY and new products
“For 2020, we budgeted for double‐digit growth again and we all agreed we could do this as a management team. Then we had the shutdown on 16 March.”
In those days of heightened uncertainty, the firm furloughed half its staff with fears of production plummeting, but by the end of April virtually everyone had been brought back.
“For the period of 16 March to mid‐ August, we were 5.5% down on last year. I’m quite pleased if you compare that to the UK GDP figures [down 20.4% in Q2].
“From 16 March to end of June we were 18.6% down, whereas in July we were 36% up on last year – it was our best‐ever month, by far.”
“It is starting to come back and it is certainly more encouraging now merchants have re‐opened and are trying to get back to some kind of normality, but who can tell if things will bounce back slowly or if we’ll have a ‘v’ shaped recovery?”
Covid‐19 has led to the development of some new Bond It products in direct response, including WHO‐approved hand sanitisers, surface sanitisers and even social distancing tape. Meanwhile, other established Bond It products were used in the building of the Harrogate Nightingale hospital, in particular, adhesive for the special cladding panels.
The DIY lockdown boom did benefit Bond It, although the DIY channel is a small part of the firm’s business. Moore says: “A lot of our products can be used by DIY‐ers, but the majority of our customer base is through distribution, via builders merchants, timber merchants, fixings merchants and the like. The DIY customer base grew from 3% to about 4.7% but DIY product sales grew approximately 44% which was a very healthy increase in what we always viewed as an add‐on range. We also saw a big upswing in online sales and increased web presence. We had customers that would normally spend around £5,000 with us suddenly spending £50,000 with us throughout April to June ‐ customers that were advertising on the web benefited hugely from a big push there due to the general public not being able to go to the big sheds to get their decorating and DIY supplies.”
Silicone, however, is Bond It’s core selling product range and the manufacturer is set up to produce tens of millions of cartridges of silicone every year. Covid threw the proverbial curve ball at the firm: “At the beginning of the shutdown, silicone almost died a death. However, our products for cleaning your patios and driveways, enhancing and sealing your drives and pathways, rejuvenating your decking, etc… they all saw a big uplift – for every one we sold before, we were selling ten.”
That has presented a quandary for Bond It in what sales strategy to employ going into next year. “So how do you plan for that?” Moore asks. “Do I put in new machines for patio cleaners based on this year’s sales, or will those sales fall back when everyone goes back to work?”
And as if Covid‐19 uncertainty wasn’t enough for the firm to contend with, the UK’s imminent departure from the European Union has provided an extra layer of complication despite representing a big potential advantage for a UK manufacturer like Bond It. Moore explains: “I think Brexit was a mistake, I do not think we should have done it, but actually looking at our business it is a great opportunity. We are based in the UK and if we go onto WTO trading terms that will be an advantage. Some of our main competitors have products that are 100% imported. For us, it’s only the raw material that we have to bring in. I see that as a big advantage to us as a UK manufacturer.”
But for firms like Bond It that have to buy raw materials from Europe, China or the US, some uncertainties remain: “We thought planning for Brexit was difficult, but trying to plan for the Covid situation has been nigh on impossible.”
Exports & opportunities
In addition to the aforementioned recruits, Bond It recently made a key hire in a new Commercial Manager, Greg Godeau. With a background that also includes exports, Godeau’s appointment will help the firm develop further. “We also manufacture products that people buy in bulk and they then add value to it – that’s on the commercial side. We’ve tended not to actively look for that business, so we decided to bring in a Commercial Manager to knock on a few doors. Greg will also be responsible for our business in the USA too. In North Carolina we manufacture Rescue Tape, a self‐fusing silicone tape. It’s a massive business and a recognised brand worldwide, being initially developed for the US Military.
“We also have a close working relationship with a hybrid polymer manufacturer and have developed a new roofing product for the silicone roofing market, primarily for the established market in the US but we are launching it in the UK too. We already received three container orders from one distributor in LA so we are quite excited about that. We are expecting it to be bigger than our tape business in the US once it’s established – you buy a tape off the shelf for $20 but you spend thousands of dollars on a roof, so it’s an area we are investing heavily into to promote it through the right channels with adverting, write up, good POS, etc.”
Bond It has been building up its ISO accreditations over the years, from 9001 to the environment‐focused ISO 14001 and the health and safety‐centric 45001. “We are proud to have achieved all three,” Moore says. “We operate to those standards, they aren’t just a badge. We believe they are worthwhile.”
The ISO 14001 led to the creation of a reusable cartridge system, Reload, from Bond It. “It was ahead of its time when we introduced it some years ago – we had this reusable cartridge that didn’t really take off. British builders can be very traditional, conservative and resistant to change. However, now the awareness of sustainable products is much greater we feel this is a good time to reintroduce the Reload concept and do our bit for the environment ‘Our silicone solution to
reduce pollution!’.
It’s cheaper, has less environmental impact, as part of the packaging is reusable whilst the other part compacts down into a small aluminium slug which is about 60% lighter than standard plastic cartridges; and offers the user an extended shelf life of the product as the silicone is encased in impervious foil material not plastic.”
New products are on the way too, some customer driven, but all designed to turn the UK building chemicals specialist into an ever more vital one‐stop‐shop for
the industry.
www.bond-it.co.uk
This article was originally published in the September-October 2020 issue of Torque Magazine. Read the entire issue online or subscribe here.
