TYNEDALE’S biggest employer, Egger UK, has launched a new portfolio of wood products for furniture, interior design and specification sectors.

The new Decorative Collections range from the chipboard specialists includes products for kitchen cupboards and doors, wardrobes and other bedroom units, desks and drawers for offices, furniture and wall panels for hotels, and counters and shelving for shops.

With over 120 brand new designs, the collections were only launched last month but have already been chosen by a premium hotel chain, a national supermarket chain and one of the country’s largest housing developers for upcoming projects.

The firm is investing heavily in its manufacturing sites, people and processes. During the last financial year, £13.5m was spent on growth investments, including the construction of a new £7m distribution warehouse.

Egger says that over the last six years, £90m has been spent at its Hexham plant, including new lamination presses, advanced impregnation lines, a £4m engineering building and apprentice training academy, and also a state-of-the-art glue plant.

Commercial director Bob Livesey said: “Our customers are looking for more and more realistic designs.

“The industry-leading and ultra-realistic textures we offer come on the back of the investments that have taken place.

“We have a sustainable long-term growth strategy. This is reflected in our investment figures, both in terms of new investments and also to maintain our facilities.”

Egger’s head of decor development, Elliott Fairlie, said: “We have listened long and hard to what customers are telling us they want and have addressed the needs of furniture manufacturers, architects, interior designers and fabricators with our biggest-ever range and a host of service improvements.

“We have captured the latest design ideas from across Europe with woodgrain, unicolour, textile, metallic, concrete and ceramic decor effects, all designed to work individually or in combination.

“We have also completely rebuilt our website with a number of new features, launched an ‘Egger Collection App’ and are using channels such as Pinterest, or our own ‘Trendcast’ videos on the website and YouTube, to help customers come up with innovative ways of using some of our extensive range of new decors.”