Kitchen Worktops – From a Supply Chain Perspective

Many of us when shopping for kitchen worktops feel that the price for a granite or an engineered quartz kitchen top is a bit too much. So I decided to post a supply chain perspective for kitchen worktops, surely it will help explain the value stream of this product.

It’s important for buyers to value the kitchen worktops correctly, confidence in quality products is essential to maintain a long lasting satisfaction. We will be focusing specially on granite and engineered quartz kitchen worktops, being that the supply chain starts off at different points, but ends up in the same sales channels.

 

The end price of a kitchen worktop is effected by many factors, besides quality of the raw material, technology implied to manufacture, professional assistance to the sale, installation supervision and control, etc.,etc.

A great while before your kitchen worktop gets installed in your beautiful kitchen, it all starts in the quarry, the granite is extracted in giant blocks, leading to the slab manufacturers to cut and polish.

 

While the engineered stone also starts off at the quartz quarries, although it then is grinded into specific grit sizes. The quartz grit and other components are the input at engineered stone plants, being the output high quality engineered quartz slabs.

As you may imagine before your kitchen countertop arrives and is installed in your kitchen it goes through several companies and stages, at this point we are at the polished slab stage, being from here on granite and engineered quartz have similar paths. As both are manufactured from this point on with similar tooling and use the same sales channels to arrive at the end users home.

The slabs are then shipped to slab distributors who wholesale slabs to the manufacturing industry. And from this point on we may find several sales channels available. The kitchen countertop manufacturers may service the consumer, however due to the necessity of scale sales, and to the whole installation involved they tend to avoid the direct channel to the end customer. So they tend to service the market through intermediate businesses, having in some cases market channels directly to contractors and developers, who coordinate the kitchen countertops with cabinet manufacturers.

At the next level we may find a few types of business which focus on the end customer, either directly or as we mentioned before through contractors and developers, due to the quantities involved and the constant stream of sales from the latter, they both have particular features. While on one end we have a better price paid by the end consumer, on the other hand we will have volumes, which will imply scale and bigger earnings.

The types of businesses we may find at this level may be: Kitchen and Bath Dealers, Cabinet Shop, Installer Reseller, Big-Box Store. So on one end we see installers and on the other side retailers. Some will focus on certain niche markets, like the contracting and developing market, these tend to syndicate their orders to approved suppliers. The end customer will certainly need to visit a few showrooms to help decide and view some options available.

Regarding the kitchen countertops specifically, obviously from country to country things may be slightly different, but in general the sales channels defined are the major outlets for kitchen countertops.

The businesses who service the market will tend to carry a few (one or two, rarely more) brands of engineered stone, with a sample collection to help the clients selection, while granite type will have a wide selection of samples organized by colour. 

Some important features to look for when buying kitchen worktops:

• Be sure you choose your kitchen countertop material correctly, ask all questions regarding the material and especially all needed maintenance, if it has a brand name, look it up on the Internet, see if it has positive reviews

• Be certain that the installation is serviced by professionals, many problems occur during installation, so supervise this phase closely, make sure they don’t try to hide mistakes

• Look over your countertops material carefully, make sure there are no pours, cracks or other defects

• Check edges next to the backsplash walls, make sure the gap is acceptable, many tend to use a strip of material as a mini backsplash, however in most cases it is to hide countertop size imperfections;

• Check the areas where the countertop is amended, in most kitchens the countertops are divided into a few pieces, make sure that the division made is logic, this means the least possible number of pieces, and also, verify the joint, make sure it’s well disguised and not fully visible.
• Another important thing about the joint area, is that both pieces should have the same thickness on the visible end, so check to see if they two pieces are perfectly calibrated.

Kitchen Worktop

A kitchen worktop should be durable and blend in with the design. Selecting your kitchen worktop is an important part of your kitchen design. A kitchen worktop in my honest opinion should be made of stone, either granite or a solid surface solution.

Avoid marble as I have mentioned in prior posts it will give you problems, even with all the care and maintenance you are willing to do. It's just chemically and physically impossible for a marble to survive in such an aggressive environment.
So the solutions I suggest are just two granite or engineered stone. These products are resistant and beautiful and will give your kitchen a unique look, however each one has some special details which you should not overlook.

Granite Worktop

Granite is a natural stone, it's durable and comes with certain characteristics which mother nature has put it's hand into, it's very difficult to find pure colour granites, the black is the only exception, you will always have grayish base with black and white spots, or pinkish base with dark gray and black spots, the texture is not perfect.

When you decide to buy granite you are basically buying a natural stone for your kitchen, this means it will need some basic care and maintenance. Other issues regarding your countertop may arise while buying of after installation of your granite worktop, so here are some issues you should look into:

• Check with the installer/manufacturer specific care and maintenance issues regarding the granite which you just bought. Granite absorbs water, their are granites that are more porous than some marbles, so make sure you know what type of product you bought so you can prevent damage

•  Granite is normally cheaper than engineered stone, although some granite colours especially the exotic ones can be a bit expensive

• Granite is extracted from the quarries in blocks, the slabs are then cut out, the granite slab is normally a dimensional slab with dimensions above 3 m x 1,4 m. So make sure that your kitchen worktop is made from the least pieces as possible. You don't want a mosaic looking worktop if you paying top dollar for it.

• Granite as other natural stone have shade issues, shade issues can be caused by several factors: the slabs used to do your worktops did not belong to the same block; the slab had polishing problems therefore the shade difference is due to that; the worktop has been wet and absorbed water, giving and idea of a darker colour. The first two problems are due to low quality slab selection, which the manufacturer/installer should solve, the last one is a care and maintenance issue which you should take into account. The last one could pose as a bigger problem if you tile a floor and humidity is coming in from underneath, so you'll have a shade difference, this can be easily resolved using wet effect chemical agents, you should speak to the installer or manufacturer.

• Be careful with some cheap granite material which may appear to be a great deal. Some granites have iron ore in them and rust up, take a few minutes to look into the physical properties of the stone you just installed. I've come across some granite with this problem in the past.

 Engineered Stone Worktop

 I guess if you read my blog, engineered stone is one of my top issues, I really think it is a product you can use on kitchen worktops. It's durable and blends in nicely with design. The quantity of textures and colours available are a designers dream, you can easily just do something different and unique. However it's not a perfect product, like very other product it does need some care and maintenance.
 The colours make this product different and interesting to use, you will not find too many mono colour textures in natural granite. Engineered stone will give you a wide variety of unique looking colours that will surprise you with the design options you'll have.
When buying or after installation these are some issues you should look into:

• Check your countertop to see if has quality, look at the polish make sure it's even, basically you'll notice shade differences if their is a polishing problem. Porous, check the surface make sure no micro porous exist. 

• Underneath the counter most engineered stone manufactures mark the production details and the brand name you just bought. Take a few moments to look them up on the Internet, view their guarantee carefully. And don't forget to check their care and maintenance issues.

• The engineered stone slab is commonly 3 m x 1,4 m, although you can find bigger ones from some producers, make sure you're kitchen worktop is made up with the minimum number of pieces, as I said before avoid mosaic looking worktops, remember you are paying top dollars for your worktop

• Using engineered stone as kitchen worktops has some inconveniences, make sure you know what you are getting into. For example: avoid putting a hot pot or pan directly in contact with your engineered stone as it'll damage the surface.