MHK, Europe’s leading buying group for independent KBB retailers, has reported its largest ever year-on-year increase in membership at its annual press conference, which took place in Dreieich, Germany on 12th April. The company, which was founded in 1992 and has had a UK subsidiary since 2018, said that 356 partners joined the group in 2023, taking the total to 4,233 by the end of the year.
Volker Klodwig, CEO of the MHK Group, said: “The wider market conditions did not make it easy for us in 2023 making it all the more important to show a clear stance, which is exactly what we have done. We were able to demonstrate to our partners in the KBB industry not only our fantastic achievements for 2023 but that we understand their day-to-day business and can offer them dedicated, tailored and comprehensive support.”
MHK said that it has made ‘substantial investments to counter the general market downturn and support specialist kitchen retailers’. Overall, MHK partners were reported to have generated gross sales amounting to €9.661billion. Klodwig credited ‘the resilient sales’ to a 9% growth in membership and a more premium offering driving increased selling prices.
The company also attributed its success to its exclusive brands: Designo, elementa, Neola, Selective and xeno as well as ‘initiatives for digitalisation solutions that increase efficiency’. A joint venture, athenix, with ametras GmbH resulted in CARAT kitchenstox, a 100% cloud-based ERP solution that fully integrates into CARAT planning software. Its success in Germany and Austria has now resulted in plans for it to be introduced in other European countries.
Klodwig said: “We have been able to cushion the acute consequences of a difficult economic environment, but above all we have empowered our members to take advantage of this phase. After all, consumer demand will return, benefitting the companies that have established a strong market position and who will be able to utilise their brand awareness to attract customers as well as having implemented efficient digital processes.”
Despite what he described as many ‘wild cards’ on the horizon, Klodwig said he is cautiously optimistic about the future: “Our project roadmap is well developed, and we are focussed on growing even further. We demonstrated this in 2023 with our intimate knowledge of our retailers, our unique service portfolio, and our innovation pipeline whose target focus is always the benefit for our partners.”
