Page 28 - HW Oct 2022

glues, silicones & sealants
How can products be HOT and STICKY?
Steve Bohling asks if glues, silicones & sealants are coming unstuck or managing to stick with it?
OUR MAIN IMAGE is unprocessed silicon, the raw material of many glues, silicones & sealants products.
With the pandemic affecting processing, the supply of silicon has been a key issue for suppliers of these products, if not the only issue...
For this article last year, we were talking to the players in lockdown.
All were already flat tack, trying to keep up with demand yet faced with uncertain supply lines and talking about if not actually passing on cost increases.
This year, costs remain an issue, but consents are still sky high and views on the pipeline of work ahead seem to be staying positive, in stark contrast to the negativity being shown by the general media.
However, coming off two “surge” years of spending in home improvement and with the borders re-opening, in this respect there is clear uncertainty about where consumers will place their discretionary in the DIY and home improvement market in the year ahead.
For now, though, despite the ongoing reality of delays and price hikes in raw materials, our glues, silicones & sealants pundits remain positive overall.
Take Tony Smith, Sika NZ’s Business Manager – Distribution, for whom sales have been “really good,” despite ongoing issues with raw materials and uncertainty around cost and shipping.
Darren Newland, Country Manager at Selleys NZ, is seeing “a lot of market activity” right now, saying that the company is “very busy at the moment.”
“Despite the doom and gloom that everyone’s talking about, certainly the broader market is pretty resilient and there are no signs of letting up,” he says.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of pent-up demand coming through as well. But overall, sales are very, very strong.”
Melanie Reid and Soudal have it that the local shortages
of key building products have had a material effect on their business in recent times but would agree with Darren Newland and others that they are now coming back online and far less of a pinch point than previously.
“The tap’s turned on now,” adds Paul O’Reilly, Bostik National Sales Manager, who reports that the market is “pretty steady” and “seems to be coming back to normal.”
SUPPLY CHAIN AND STOCK ON HAND
One way suppliers are seeking to mitigate shipping issues and, in some cases, reduce if not eliminate the out of stocks seen in the last couple of years of disruption, is to carry more
26 NZHJ | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
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