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Where Irish kitchen manufacturers buy carcasses, board and doors: the supply options compared

1 August 2026 · Ger Devereux

Every kitchen workshop in Ireland answers the same question, usually by habit rather than comparison: where does the board, the carcasses, the doors and the hardware come from? Most firms settled into a supply route years ago and have not priced the alternatives since. This post lays out the four routes side by side, with the honest trade offs of each, so the comparison takes ten minutes instead of a sales meeting.

Route one: Irish distributors

The default for most workshops. Board, doors and hardware from an Irish distributor, often delivered within days, sometimes off the shelf.

The strengths are real: speed, no import admin, a rep you can ring, and the ability to order small and often, which keeps cash out of stock. When a job goes wrong on a Tuesday, the replacement panel arriving Thursday is worth a lot.

The trade off is margin. Everything on an Irish distributor’s shelf has already travelled through at least one and often two other businesses, each taking their cut. You are paying for the convenience whether a given order needs it or not.

Route two: UK trade suppliers

A step wider than the Irish yard. UK suppliers offer deeper ranges, and for some product lines better pricing than local stock.

Since Brexit, the trade off is paperwork and uncertainty. Orders from Great Britain into Ireland carry customs formality that did not exist before, and rules of origin decide the duty on a product by product basis. Many workshops that leaned on UK suppliers before 2021 have quietly drifted back to Irish distributors just to avoid the friction, which is understandable but leaves the pricing question unanswered rather than answered.

Route three: European factories

Buying from factories or large distributors in Poland, Germany, Italy or Spain. Inside the single market, so no customs friction, and the product ranges are wide, particularly for doors and fittings.

The trade offs: minimum order quantities that suit larger workshops better than small ones, freight costs that only make sense at volume, and the practical matter of relationships conducted in another language and time zone. When something arrives damaged, resolving it can be slower than the ordering was.

Route four: direct from the factory in China

The route with the biggest cost gap and the most caution attached. The caution usually comes down to three worries: the border, the minimums, and who to ring when something goes wrong.

The border is more manageable than its reputation. We covered the actual duty position in detail in our guide to importing panels and board from China to Ireland: for the products a kitchen workshop actually buys, the rates are specific, published and mostly modest, and the infamous anti dumping duty applies to hardwood plywood, not to the melamine faced board and MDF products that make up most kitchen orders.

The minimums are the real historical barrier. Factory direct has traditionally meant container quantities, which locks out everyone except the biggest manufacturers. That is the specific problem our arrangement removes: no minimum order quantity on any line. If the right first order is a single drawer, a single drawer ships.

The remaining worry, who to ring, is fair. Dealing with a factory in another time zone through a sales inbox is where direct import goes wrong. Our answer is structural: one named person in Ireland owns the account, shipping and customs into Ireland are handled for you, and every order carries the documentation an Irish importer needs, with the duty position in writing before the first order. Lead times are the honest trade off that remains: plan on around 12 weeks from order to delivery, which suits planned stock and scheduled jobs, not Tuesday’s emergency panel.

The comparison in one view

• Irish distributor: fastest, easiest, most expensive. Right for emergencies and small fill in orders, always.
• UK trade: wider range, post Brexit customs friction, case by case duty. Worth it for specific products you cannot get elsewhere.
• European factory: no customs friction, good ranges, but minimums and freight favour bigger workshops.
• Direct from the factory in China: the biggest cost gap, a lead time to plan around, and historically container minimums, which is the barrier that no longer applies here.

The sensible structure is a mix

No serious workshop should buy everything through one route. The pattern that works: planned, repeating volume (standard board, carcasses, high turnover hardware) on the cheapest route that can be scheduled, and the local distributor kept warm for speed when a job needs saving. The money is made on the planned volume; the local yard earns its margin on the emergencies.

If you want to know what your planned volume would look like factory direct, send us your last invoice or order spec and we price it like for like within days. No commitment in the comparison, and you will know either way.