Galiform's loyal customer-base of small builders have helped it to a strong performance in the first half of 2010, with underlying sales of the kitchens and joinery products it sells through its Howden's depots climbing 2.5 per cent.
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Admittedly, that was measured against last year's weak performance, when the grip of the economic downturn saw like-for-like sales plummet by almost 10 per cent. But the recovery appears to be accelerating, with chief executive Matthew Ingle pointing out that the same depot growth rate had climbed to 6 per cent towards the end of the period. Improved systems and manufacturing processes also helped push gross margin up by four percentage points to 58.1 per cent.