Employees at Utopia were delighted to support the charity Breast Cancer Now last Friday, 18 October, by sporting pink garments to work on Wear it Pink Day. Many staff members raided their wardrobes and a whole range of pink clothing was on display at the company’s Wolverhampton headquarters.

This was the latest fund-raising effort by the company which supports a range of local and national charities. Helen Clark, Head of Marketing at Utopia, said “Who doesn’t enjoy the opportunity to dress up in a good cause? Cancer charities are particularly dear to our heart at Utopia as a number of employees have been affected, including our own Liz Green, so we’re delighted to take any opportunity to support them.”

Utopia is delighted to announce the launch of its new ZEST Partner Programme, which goes live this October. This latest initiative follows on from a strategic review of the business and aims to position the company as the leading supplier for adding value to customers, categories and consumers. 

ZEST is a fully detailed support programme of customer business benefits with increased insights on how Utopia adds value to partners. Based on numerous factors, Utopia is introducing a new three tiered partner category – Signature, Advocate and Associate. The programme also focuses on the potential for customers to make step changes in their display/sales/brand advocacy alignment to secure the best possible partner categorisation, ultimately leading to the highest level of reward and support possible.

Utopia Sales Director Gary Matthews explains “The new ZEST programme massively simplifies our business proposition by communicating all the benefits of being associated with Utopia. It will undoubtedly energise our business partnerships and our Business Development Managers are currently busy explaining to our partners the many features and opportunities that ZEST presents.”

Intrepid staff at Utopia’s Wolverhampton headquarters dodged the showers to raise over £1,500 on their annual 10k charity walk recently. This enjoyable event is organised by Matt Cox, an Assembly Team Supervisor at Utopia. Matt describes the walk as a pleasant stroll with colleagues, stopping for refreshments along the way.

With a record £1,545 raised this year so far and the possibility of further donations to come, the impressive sum will be split between the Men’s Mental Health Charity, which aims to raise awareness about mental health among men, and Utopia’s own Liz Green Fund, set up to benefit cancer charities and local causes in memory of one of the founding directors Liz Green.

The happy group of 20 walkers had a brilliant day and actually walked 11.2k in total, all strikingly attired in bright pink T shirts proudly displaying the logos of the two chosen charities.

Matt comments “Quite apart from raising valuable funds for charity, this is such a brilliant team-building occasion. It’s a great opportunity for Utopia staff to spend time together outside work. Congratulations to everyone who took part.”

Leading bathroom furniture manufacturer Utopia has launched a new section of its website dedicated to its Contracts division.  The move coincides with its recently announced partnership with the National Building Specification and product listing on NBS Source.

Utopia has had a thriving Contracts and Developer division for over 30 years working with some of the leading names within the sector. Headed up now by Chris Hewitt, the dedicated team works closely with builders, developers and retailers on projects from concept to completion.  Proud to design and manufacture all of its extensive range of furniture in the UK, Utopia leads the way in supplying innovative and tailored bathroom solutions to the sector.

In addition to detailing the range of services and products on offer, the new website content includes specific case studies which demonstrate Utopia’s creative and imaginative approach to any project, large or small.

For further information about how Utopia’s Contract Division can help your business, visit www.utopiagroup.com or contact contractsupport@utopiagroup.com.

As a key part of its recent product launch, Utopia has increased the number of deck-mounted basin solutions it offers to give consumers more choice in terms of shape, colour and finish.

Whilst ceramic and mineralcast basins in an extensive choice of shapes and sizes have been part of the Utopia range for some years, this has now been extended with the addition of the Quinn matt ceramic basin and the Stratton and Hepworth mineralcast styles.

Quinn is a beautifully simple round ceramic basin, intentionally understated to showcase its stunning satin matt finish. With Quinn Utopia has also introduced its first black option opening up exciting design opportunities. Quinn is available in both Chalk (white) and Twilight (black) colourways with colour co-ordinated wastes.

Stratton is a circular basin in a glossy mineralcast finish. With a 380mm diameter Stratton’s compact size frees up more worktop area and is ideal for use with wall mounted or deck mounted taps. Finally, Hepworth is a distinctive sculptured oval basin with subtle details at the rim and foot to give it definition, and a simple colour matched waste shroud for seamless appeal.

As Helen Clark, Head of Marketing at Utopia, explains, it is all about increasing the design possibilities of the Utopia furniture ranges. Helen comments “We know consumers love creating a unique look for their bathroom and those all important finishing touches such as the basin, taps and handles really can make a huge difference to the overall look. Sit-on basins are always an eye-catching focal point and we now offer a truly comprehensive choice of style, colour and shape.”

From striking black and white geometric patterns to natural textured effects, Utopia’s tile offering has been significantly extended with the addition of 14 new design families offering a total of 53 new tiles.

Utopia has long recognised the importance of selling a complete look through its imagery and showroom displays with tiles playing a key role whether to provide a dramatic backdrop, a neutral, understated background or indeed something in between.

Realistic natural effects continue to play a key role in the overall tile collection with effects such as the Sherwood wood effect porcelain wall and floor tiles and new textured stone effects like Pentire Strands, Barras Calico wall tiles and the Constantine Sands trio of complementary tiles. Adding visual drama are the striking Gotham wall and floor tiles comprising five stunning geometric patterns and three complementary plain tiles. Very popular at the moment are the thin rectangular wall tiles which can be arranged horizontally, vertically or artistically in a tessellated pattern, and Utopia has added a variety of ranges, colours and a choice of matt or gloss finish. Complementing these are the Harlyn wall tiles which offer a dedicated chevron effect. 

Helen Clark, Head of Marketing at Utopia, comments “With these exciting latest additions, our tile collection offers an immense variety of colours, textures and sizes, including large format options. We hope our vibrant imagery together with our online Visualise design tool, which allows all of our wall and floor tiles to be viewed in any potential layout, will encourage consumers to be creative with complete confidence when it comes to tile choice.”

Utopia further supports its newly extended tile collection with a free sampling service for the end consumer.  

With the desire for round mirrors on the increase, Utopia has added three new circular mirror ranges to its product portfolio – Luma, Luma Horizon and Orbitz.

Introducing the new mirrors, Helen Clark, Utopia’s Head of Marketing, comments “Round mirrors are exceptionally popular at the moment. They offer a stunning focal point and introduce welcome curves into the bathroom where there are often so many straight lines and angles. They are also brilliant for irregular spaces where a rectangular solution just won’t work. Best of all, we offer options to colour co-ordinate the mirror with the furniture, allowing for that completely co-ordinated look.”

Exclusive to the Roseberry painted timber collection is Orbitz. Measuring 750mm in diameter this imposing mirror features a decorative surround available in any of the eight Roseberry paint finishes to match the furniture.

Available across the range, the Luma mirror is available in 500mm, 700mm and 900mm diameters with a depth of 25mm. It has an attractive frosted illuminated halo surround in natural white, a touch switch on the lower front face of the mirror and a demister on the two larger options.

The Luma Horizon offers the same features as the Luma but is mounted on to an 18mm decorative backboard available in 520mm, 720mm and 920mm diameters and in 19 finishes to coordinate with many of the Utopia furniture collection decors.

Five years after investing in a Talbott’s biomass boiler and heating system at their Midlands-based headquarters, Utopia Furniture Ltd has reported a significant reduction in the company’s carbon footprint as part of its ongoing commitment to the environment.

As Jon Phelps, Production Engineering Manager at Utopia, comments “The biomass boiler and heating system represented a considerable investment for Utopia but we really are reaping the benefits now.  Collecting off-cuts and dust waste in skips and then transporting it to landfill sites was not only costly but also unsustainable in environmental terms. This way we eliminate all of that process whilst generating our own energy.”

Since its installation in April 2017, over 3,000 tonnes of wood waste has been used to fuel the biomass boiler. That’s the equivalent of 300 large skips full of waste which would previously have been collected and transported to landfill sites. This waste has generated over 500,000kwh for Utopia which has heated the factory and offices during the winter months and also kept the two ovens used during the manufacturing process at the correct curing temperature all year round. To put this into perspective, 500,000kwh would heat 10 x 40ft indoor swimming pools for a year or heat 125 average size houses for a year.

The biomass heating system is just part of Utopia’s strategy to lessen its impact on the environment by constantly reviewing manufacturing practices as well as designing more sustainable products. The company is proud to exceed environmental targets each year by recycling packaging and has also taken steps to minimise the use of cardboard by cutting packaging to exact size on site. In addition, every year tonnes of packaging waste is recovered and recycled.  Almost 100% of the timber used in Utopia’s furniture is FSC certified and the company continues to actively explore new eco friendly measures to reduce its carbon footprint still further.

As part of its recent major Spring product launch, Utopia has added an array of stunning new displays to the showroom at its Wolverhampton headquarters.

The newly updated showroom opened in March for a series of exclusive customer preview days to showcase the new product collections. In total, over 200 retailers have been welcomed on site to view key developments across the flagship Roseberry and YOU collections, as well as a multitude of new additions across the entire product portfolio.

Helen Clark, Head of Marketing at Utopia, comments “Our showroom is an incredibly valuable resource enabling us to present our new products in truly inspirational settings. Since we not only supply the furniture but also a large portfolio of complementary products, our showroom provides us with the perfect backdrop to execute carefully thought out and imaginative new displays, showing creative combinations of our latest furniture, sanitaryware,  baths, brassware and tiles. The reaction to our latest product launch has been incredible.”

A completely new on-trend unicolor look has been created for Utopia’s YOU modular furniture collection with the introduction of colour coordinated cladding panels. New sit-on basins and worktop options, new brassware and a choice of new contemporary handles complete the radical transformation.

Key to the new look are the cladding panels which are available in all 19 YOU colours and finishes, including four super matt, soft touch colours and 15 additional gloss, matt and textured options.  The cladding panels can be used to create the popular unicolour effect and are perfect teamed with 12mm compact laminate worktops from the collection and the newly extended range of sit-on basins. Brand new basin styles include two glossy mineralcast basins, the circular Stratton and the generously proportioned, oval Hepworth as well as the new Quinn, a matt ceramic circular basin available in Chalk (white) or Twilight (black) colourways with coordinating wastes.

Also contributing to the new look is the introduction of the Vector handle. Vector is a short, industrial-inspired yet elegant handle offered in brushed chrome, brushed brass and matt black.

YOU is one of Utopia’s key modular furniture collections. Explaining the new additions, Rich Shore, Head of Product Design, said “The full unicolour look is hugely on-trend at the moment, so opening up the availability and flexibility of Utopia’s extensive décor collection to YOU has been a real revolution.”  Helen Clark, Head of Marketing, adds “With some clever introductions and by ensuring the collection is even more configurable with colour, worktop finish, basin choice, and handle style and finish, there are so many distinct looks that can be achieved. Combined with other additions to the product range, such as the Luma circular mirror, YOU has been given a completely new, fresh look.”