There are just a few days remaining for businesses exhibiting at the January Furniture Show to submit their entry for The Furniture Awards 2025.
Each year, January Furniture Show, and its principal media partner Furniture News, come together to celebrate the event’s best and brightest exhibitors.
Selected by a judging panel comprising Malcolm Walker (FIRST MW), Becca Maloy (100% Comfort), Darryl Simpson (WJ Aldiss), Richard Naylor (Hawksfield Consulting) and Emma Leeke (Leekes), the winners will join 2024's worthy alumni:
Best of British: Alpha Designs Upholstery
Alpha Designs is a rare example of how a relative newcomer can make an impact in an industry dominated by long-established names. Having started life in a unit in Bilston in 2010, Alpha Designs now runs two fully operational factories, employs some 200 people and makes around 2000 sofas each week, fuelled by an in-house design and development team. Flying the flag for British-made upholstery, and demonstrating that young blood and fresh ideas can make a difference, Alpha Designs is an inspiration.
Highly Commended: Lebus Upholstery
Design Innovation: Whitemeadow Furniture
Classy, high-spec and functional, Whitemeadow’s latest models reflect just part of what makes Sutton-in-Ashfield’s upholstery giant a design powerhouse. Whitemeadow’s design studio has a knack for creating commercially viable product that hits the right price points, often putting new slants on old ideas, but always among the first to embrace new approaches, with an eye on the next generation of furniture designers.
Highly Commended: A.L.F. UNO
Global Player: Qualita
Qualita’s story has it all – cost engineering, manufacturing efficiency, effective fulfilment partnerships, and eminently commercial product. Supplementing its modern manufacturing facility in Lithuania, Qualita works closely with third-party manufacturers across the globe, enabling it to meet demand in the most appropriate manner. In the UK, its Qualita, Stockholm and Shadows collections represent a varied cabinet furniture portfolio with oak at its heart – and the business also operates across Europe, and further afield, fuelled by its impressive licensing deal with Laura Ashley.
Highly Commended: Tomasella Industria Mobili
Superior Service: Iconography
A technical agency specialising in web-based business solutions, Iconography boasts a growing roster of satisfied customers, and its recent project for Haskins Furniture demonstrates just how much the operations behind furniture retail can be streamlined by embracing an integrated IT system with the right partner. With capabilities spanning ecommerce, operations, store and stock management, and a view on front-end performance as much as back-end efficiency, Iconography also shines for its excellent customer service and industry-specific expertise.
Confirmed JFS exhibitors can find details of how to enter here – the entry form will close on Wednesday 4th December.
The entries will then be assessed online, with the finalists revealed in January, and the winners announced in JFS’ Social Studio at 5.30pm on Sunday 19th January (Hall 2, NEC Birmingham), before the Show Party – both sponsored by WORDFIRST.
