Welcome to The Kbbreview Podcast and another of our special episodes around the kbbreview Retail & Design Awards 2025.

This month’s episode is a peek behind the curtain of the awards, as we have a chat with some of the judges, both in the retail business categories and the design categories. We’ll find out about the approach to judging and interpreting the criteria, and what the judges expect from the 2025 awards in particular.

A huge thank you needs to go out to our awards podcast partner, Sonas Bathrooms - it’s great to have their support, as between now and the event on Thursday, April 24, at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom we'll be bringing you MORE special bonus episodes where we'll really get under the skin of the awards and celebrate the very best talent our industry has to offer.

In fact, we'll be revealing the shortlist itself in a very special episode of this podcast just before Christmas!

In any case, for more information on the awards and booking tables, you can go to kbbreview.com/awards.

On with the show!

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Welcome to The kbbreview Podcast, your host is editor-at-large Rebecca Nottingham and this is another of our very special Rising Star episodes where we meet the upcoming superstars of kitchen and bathroom retail.

Between August 2024 and March 2025 we’ll be picking a monthly Rising Star to feature in the magazine, online and this very podcast. Those eight monthly winners then become the shortlist for the overall winner which will be revealed at the kbbreview Retail & Design Awards 2025 in April.

It's done with the support of our very good friends at Blum and you can find out more about them at blum.com.

You can nominate your rising stars, or indeed nominate yourself, via the awards website kbbreview.com/awards and there are only two rules:

They must be currently employed by a retailer - which we're defining as a company that sells direct to the consumer.

AND

They must be under 30 years of age on March the 4th, 2025.

Other than that, they can perform any job role within your business – admin, design, sales, finance, installation, we don’t mind as long as they’re a star!

So let's meet our Rising Star for November, Alistair Glover. After starting out on the supply side, he became fascinated by kitchen design, eventually joining retailer Alexander in Sussex and in the space of just two impressive years, he's gone from designer to showroom manager. Here's his story…

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Welcome to the kbbreview Podcast and this is Episode Ten and the last official episode of Season 13.

Season 14 will officially start in the New Year but we'll actually be back in December with a special mini-series looking ahead to 2025 AND, of course, the now legendary episode where we reveal the shortlist for the kbbreview Retail & Design Awards 2025 (entries close on November 14th!)

In this episode we're meeting two of our 2024/25 Adopted Retailers - you may have seen this in the magazine and online but we're following three independent retailers over the next 12 months as they embark on new endeavours in their businesses. The ins and outs, the ups and downs and everything in between as we map the very real experiences of independent KBB retailers.

In this episode we're meeting Joe Kardani, the co-founder of Point 5 Kitchens in North London. After opening their first showroom in Muswell Hill in 2016, they're in the middle of developing their second showroom just down the road in Belsize Park.

Then we have Olivia Weaver, aged just 25, she and her husband are starting a brand new retail business in Shropshire called Harrison James after several years on the tools.

Our third Adopted Retailer is the equally interesting Leamington Kitchen Company in Leamington Spa and you can read their first installment here and we'll meet them on a podcast further down the line.

All this is made possible by our Adopted Retailer Partner Alku, the exciting new range of Kitchen, Bedroom and Lifestyle furniture, created with the designer in mind. We're delighted to have them on board for this and you can find out everything you need to know about them, including how to become a dealer, at alku.co.uk.

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