Caesarstone is a global designer and manufacture of surfaces. These are principally used for kitchen worktops, back-splashes, and bathroom vanities. In 2017, we established Caesarstone as a direct business in the UK.
By the time we launched, the Caesarstone brand was already well known amongst architects, designers, and housebuilders, having been in the market for well over a decade at that point. However, the direct business opportunity provided us with substantial scope to build the brand further and grow our market share to the same levels enjoyed in our other international territories such as North America and Australia.
We scaled the business quickly in the early phase, that strong brand recognition helping to open doors to many potential partners, not least a plethora of housebuilders. One particular conversation with the procurement team of a sizeable housebuilder has stayed with me from those early days of the business.
“We don’t fit quartz surfaces”.
“Caesarstone has already been specified and is being fitted in a number of your developments”, we politely explained.
“I thought that was granite”, came the reply.
This is a summarised version of the conversation, but I have heard many similar exchanges since.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, the hub. The most complex room in the house and, if you are a housebuilder, an essential area to get right in order to drive sales. After 18-months of a global pandemic that saw us not only eat in our kitchens but also work and educate our children there, this has never been truer. The kitchen has taken on new meaning for all of us and expectations of what it should deliver are high. Industry surveys regularly show that, of all the rooms in your showhouse, the kitchen is the one most likely to tip the balance when it comes to signing an agreement.
Croudace Homes
Moreover, the kitchen worksurface play such a central role to the design of the space and its visual impact is significant. After the floor and the cabinets, it’s the next biggest surface area and one that the homeowner will interact with more than any other. Light, dark, plain, marbled, polished, textured; all elements of the worktop that impact the mood of the kitchen space. Is any of this important? Just watch a prospective buyer in a show suite next time you get the opportunity. They’ll stroke and caress the worktop as they look around; the appeal is both visual and physical. The different textures and the cool touch of Caesarstone surfaces play as much as role as colour tone and pattern.
Quartz countertops are an aspirational item for many consumers, and they are increasingly expecting to see them in new kitchens. They speak of quality, robustness, and ease of maintenance and can communicate similar feelings about the rest of the property.
As attested to by one housebuilder “Our customers pay a great deal of attention to a kitchen when buying a new home from us. The fit, finish and choice of materials and brands speaks volumes about the rest of the development. They want to see and feel quality and when they do, it can accelerate the sales process.”
Peter David Homes
So, despite the visual impact, tactile appeal, consumer aspiration for and investment in specifying quality quartz surfaces for developments, there is still a lack of knowledge about prices, technical specifications and, in some instances, even what type of product is ultimately being installed. The worktop seems to exist with an unassuming presence when, in reality, it is one of foremost stars of your primary selling tools – the dream kitchen.
A lack of clarity on the specification of materials featuring in developments is always going to be a concern. It’s not something that specifiers easily miss when it comes to steel, timber or electrical components, for example. Why would kitchen worktops be any different? Transparency of performance for materials, fixtures and fittings – including surfaces and worktops – is not a luxury but rather a fundamental requirement and housebuilders are expected to pay due diligence on the provenance of the materials installed. Specifications change and costs need to be met. But when key components, developed via rigorous and fully certified R&D process, are changed, something can go wrong. For stone, this can happen simply because someone didn’t really understand the material differences in the first place.
We understand the complexity of the commercial market and continually strive to remove the headaches of pricing and specification, ordering and delivery, installation, and aftercare. The Caesarstone brand communicates quality and reassurance. It speaks of design and craftsmanship. It exudes trust and care and we remain committed to providing the best quality and service. Each and every one of our surfaces is carefully inspected to ensure it meets the highest level of international quality standards and our extensive testing and certification processes see us continually updating and driving standards forward.
If you don’t know what you are buying and fitting, it follows that you don’t know if any of this is happening either.
Caesarstone also knows the market from a consumer perspective and the millions spent on R&D, products testing, and quality are mirrored in our global trend research. Our extensive study of design trends means our collections surf both the current waves of consumer aspiration as well as the more cutting-edge trends as they break.
Again, its worth taking the time to understand this about your kitchen worktop specification in your developments, because there is a want to see a stone worktop in the kitchen, with the predominant trend for white and grey marble-styled products. I say ‘styled’, because consumers want the look but not the headaches associated with marble, which is porous, has a tendency to stain and needs regular resealing. Hence the growth in alternatives, primarily quartz, over the last decade or so.
Sophisticated quartz designs, such as Caesarstone’s Supernatural Collection provide the most desired and sought-after marble and natural stone styles, those that will most appeal to consumers looking at show homes and marketing suites up and down the country. Surfaces like White Attica, Empira White and the newly launched Arabaetto meet the trend head on. If you are a housebuilder looking to differentiate, then look at the Metropolitan Collection. This is where Caesarstone led the trend for industrial and weathered surfaces. Rough and unpolished, this bold look forms part of the
revival of modernism, a rethinking of brutalism and the rekindling of industrial
architecture. Modern construction finishes have become a popular choice, inspired
by factories and lofts interpreted for residential and commercial interiors. It’s not as masculine and hard as it may sound, and many of the products in the collection – Cloudburst Concrete and Airy Concrete spring to mind – have a subtlety and nuance to them that makes them suitable for a range of kitchen styles.
Ballymore
All of these products are all seen on the pages of House & Garden, Elle Decoration, Living ETC and like branded appliances and certain paint colours, consumers are looking for them. Organic search for Caesarstone in the UK has risen dramatically over the last few years; consumers recognise the brand and its reassuring for them to see it present in the show suite. No accident then, that it’s quoted on the real estate information in many markets.
Continually at the forefront of the industry, whether it’s developing new technologies and production processes that allow us to create breakthrough designs, or working with the world’s leading trend analysts to generate new concepts, Caesarstone has a passion for innovation that is unmatched in our field.
So, when you’re planning your next development, take a little time to consider the not so humble worktop. Quite apart from anything else, you need to know what you’re getting; it’s likely to be what your consumers will be caressing in your show house right now.
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