EuroSpaPoolNews met Ian Pratt, Director and Simon Cook, Regional Sales Manager of SCP UK, at SPATEX 2024. They told us about SCP Europe latest news on the British Pool and Wellness markets. 

Ian Pratt, Director, and Simon Cook, Regional Sales Manager, about SCP Europe news in UK

Hello Ian, could you please tell us what is the temperature like here at SPATEX this year and what do you have to say about the UK Pool and Wellness markets?

Ian Pratt: "We experienced a really good start to the show yesterday (Editor's note: SPATEX 2024 held from 6 to 8 February, 2024) and this year we have a smaller booth because we had our Showcase last week. So, our focus has been split between two strategies with our customers this year. But we have a lot of new products to launch. So, we were quite specific with what we brought to Spatex this year: new cleaners, new pumps, new heat pumps, several new products to share with our customers so it's been a good start to the show.

New SCP UK's Pool products for 2024 season

What is the latest news from SCP Europe on the British market?

Ian Pratt: It's a market that, obviously, has known some readjustment in 2023, following the really strong two and a half growth years when we had the pandemic. So, there was a readjustment to our business last year, but it's still a very much profitable good strong business. But there's a few things that we need to focus on in the UK and some of the new product introductions are targeting areas of growth opportunities. We remained strong on pool equipment last year so that was a good sign. The focus now is with our new Regional Sales Manager, Simon Cook, who's taking over from me on the sales side in the UK. Simon's been with us for one year and is doing a great job so we're focusing on Simon and, we've got several opportunities, big opportunities in the market we've identified so he'll be pushing on with those as well.

So, here's an overview of new products, exclusive ones. Do you have any others to add or to note, to bring forward?

Ian Pratt: Yes, the cleaners! We have the new Liberty 300 & 400 Cordless Maytronics Cleaners for the UK market, the PROX 90i is on the booth as well, the Zenit 55 is being introduced in March. We managed to get the new Cosmy One by BWT onto the stand. And then new heat pumps, not only have we got the new Fairland Aqua X20, but we are also introducing the new Garden Pac Pro, and the Garden Pac Silent, plus we have new PoolStyle Heat Pumps for this year as well. So, there's many new evolutions of heat pumps for this year. We also launched last week at the showcase the exclusive Inverter Pump iSaverK Frequency Inverter and we received so many orders already! 
These new products were a really successful part of the Showcase last week. From Haogenplast, we debuted the new Stone Tile Emerald, plus the new 3D- Uni which for us is an evolution moving forward from the traditional plain lacquered materials, so we're very pleased with that. We are also focusing on Wellness  and  have new Garden Leisure hot tubs: a new 540 double lounge coming to the range for 2024 plus specification upgrades on all other models, 3 new Week End models are being introduced as well as specification upgrades and a Week End swim spa, so we're really focused on Wellness to make sure we have complete ranges for our customer base. There's more coming in the background. For 2025 we'll be even stronger."

SCP UK' stand at SPATEX 2024

Second part of the interview is with Simon Cook.
Hello Simon, what is your feeling after one year as Regional Sales Manager?

Simon Cook: "Very excited for the season 2024 because 2023 was my learning curve when I came into the SCP family. There was and is lots to learn, lots to understand and comprehend in this exciting Industry. 
I've learned an awful lot from Ian and my colleagues around me and the support they've given me has been phenomenal and as we move into 2024, I'm just very excited for the season to start. Now I've had the opportunity to meet all our vendors, building those relationships. 2024 will also be for me a year where I get out to as many customers as possible to understand their needs and how we can tailor our support accordingly.

It's a first SPATEX for you?

Simon Cook: The second, as I started at Spatex last year. This year now is to see... because I think a lot of Companies have upped their displays this year... there's definitely a much higher standard of  presenting this year so it's great to go round and meet with some of them to get a better feel for the Industry as last year, being my first days with SCP, I was pretty much static on our stand for the 3 days.

Ian told me why you had a smaller booth this year because you had the showcase last week...

Simon Cook: Last week was absolutely phenomenal. We had 20 vendors that attended from around the globe. They showcased their new products, and we had 9 different seminars on every day presented by various vendors. Each vendor had the opportunity to talk to our customers specifically about all their products we represent. We were overwhelmed with the attendance on both days, where we had over 120 customers each day and the venue was filled to capacity. 
All vendors were very impressed and the feedback has been really positive.

Was there any particular interest for any particular product last week that stood out?

Simon Cook: Maytronics and their  brilliant  Liberty 400. Juri Katz did a fantastic seminar on both days that drew a lot of people in to talk about the new cordless technology. We had the new exclusive InverK Inverter Pump pump set up and working, so customers could appreciate first hand how quiet the pump is and the innovation and capability. Another highlight was having Remy and William from Nextpool, Avady, displaying their latest Covers and Salt Chlorinators and dosing equipment. We had Hayward and Pentair showing their new products along with current products. Griffon, with all their brilliant products plus Water Treatment representation from hth^®, Lo-Chlor, plus our new redesign of the ACTI range of Water Treatment products was launched. 

Latham were displaying the PCS covers and Performance Vinyl Liners featuring "ultra-Seam" technology where we have huge potential in the market. So generally, it was a fantastic 2 days, really good. The first day started with a seminar by Haogenplast/Proflex being our onsite lining, and the amount of people that attended, we couldn't get any more people in the room."