Bristol based brick slip cladding specialists Eurobrick are celebrating 30 years in business. The pandemic has tempered their celebrations, but it has been a good opportunity to reflect. Eurobrick managing director Richard Haines shares their story,
“Like most businesses we’ve experienced numerous challenges over the last 30 years. The original directors, John and Tony started Eurobrick in 1990, and were the first to introduce a fully developed brick slip system to the UK market.
The construction industry, it’s fair to say, was quite conservative at the time and reluctant to embrace change; a new brick slip system was often viewed with suspicion. Couple this with the fact that the UK was also in a recession and that made it even harder to generate interest in our new system; people weren’t buying bricks, never mind brick slips for an unknown system.
As the economy recovered, and with a lot of hard work promoting the benefits of our system, contractors and designers started to pay attention and began to install Eurobrick on their projects. Interest in brick slip cladding systems increased to the extent that other companies thought it was a market worth being in and a host of other systems were developed and brought to market. But we’ve never been deterred by competition; it just makes us more determined.
The original system was what we now call X-Clad, but along the way we’ve responded to customer demand to create new systems to suit different applications. I-Clad was developed especially for interiors and P-Clad is an external sheathing for buildings. Our V-Clad system came about to satisfy a demand for a budget option for the retrofit market.
We’re proud that X, P & I-Clad systems have BBA (British Board of Agrément) certification. Third party certification is only awarded to products following rigorous testing and independent scrutiny, when the certifying body is completely satisfied that the product is fit for its intended use.
We’ve supplied many different sectors including leisure and hospitality, education, commercial, residential and the public sector for a wide range of clients and projects. Our systems can be seen the length and breadth of the country, including for household names such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Top Shop, Warehouse, Premier Inn and O’Neill’s, to name but a few.
Our first McDonald’s restaurant project was in August 1992, which turned out to be a very significant win for us as we’ve continued to work with them ever since, and have now supplied our systems for nearly 900 Drive Thru’ restaurants.
Our business has continued to grow year on year and in 2018, a management buyout was completed by the remaining directors; myself, Dena and Nicola when the founding directors retired.
The future, in some ways may seem uncertain right now, with Covid-19 still part of our lives and the full impact of Brexit yet to be felt. But we form a strong management team with a clear vision of the future direction of the business. We’re developing a new system and will be launching an ecommerce facility to allow customers to buy our brick slips online. Here at Eurobrick, there is much to look forward to and we wish to thank all our clients and suppliers for their support over the years.”
For more information on Eurobrick systems and products, please visit www.eurobrick.co.uk.
