About Kitchens by CRW

Delivering the goods, enjoying the process

The CRW story starts in 2018 when Campbell made the brave move away from a typical retail and installation model. Since a young age, working with his Dad, he'd followed this path and had expanded to around 35 members of staff in his previous business. After approximately twelve years, Campbell was looking to change direction and found himself drawn to manufacturing.

In this context, he felt there was a need to offer something unique, that no one else in Scotland was providing. In a nutshell today he has a family-run (Campbell's Mum, Nephew and Niece have active roles in the processing and accounts department), premium kitchen manufacturing company based in Renfrewshire, Scotland. They create bespoke and totally customisable kitchens and deliver them throughout the UK, from Brighton to Aberdeen. KitchensbyCRW offer handmade cabinets made from Egger board supplying rigid kitchen cabinets. Each kitchen manufactured is made-to-order, with every unit made to the customer's exact requirements. The company does appear to operate from the fundamental premise that their products are so varied because their customers are!

campbell whyte kitchens by crw kitchens by crw kitchen

KitchensbyCRW offer a wholly supply only solution to trade customers, builders and joiners. There is a website portal with a smart system that allows clients to generate their own quotes and translate those into the final order. Sales activity now has coverage of around thirty independent retailers in Scotland.

“I used to chase money - now it's all about loving life and making the best cabinets”
Campbell Whyte

For colleague Carol, having come from outside the industry, working at CRW has been “an education” and among the many ideas she's picked up over the past three years, is the knowledge that they can “basically make anything”. In terms of Carol's area of responsibility, business development, CRW have experienced a really busy period post-pandemic but even during Covid the workshop was making units for care homes - so it's been a very buoyant time. Carol has seen the shipping containers used to hold finished stock on their site increase from two to eight during the last year.

Carol explained to us that Campbell is passionate about his work and his staff. She shared the fact that he genuinely wants people to be happy and really hopes this means they stay for life. “We all believe in where we're going” Carol enthusiastically expressed, when describing the culture at CRW. One tangible example of how people matter comes in the form of Campbell's decision to put the entire team on a 4-day week this year. As he commented “It's MY business so I can do anything I want”. This doesn't result in poor productivity, far from it. There are targets to be met on quantity of cabinets each day but this happens in parallel with the philosophy to have fun and enjoy it'. The team now stands at 12 people including a General Manager, Design Manager and Interior Designer.

kitchens by crw staff kitchens by crw workshop

In five years Campbell is aiming for 300% growth because there's lots more capacity available and he has the option of running production across both day and night shifts in the future - the extent of their £500k machinery makes the process incredibly precise and they are able to boast an impressive turn-around of two to three weeks. There is just no stopping his ambition for staff development and scaling up operations, Campbell is looking into creating more space for CRW's own “paint to order” line. These plans will see more investment in a new spray paint machine and specialist staff to create door finishes in ANY colour.

It's not purely about volume though, because CRW's vision is intrinsically wrapped around a core of quality execution and service. We learned that the people who fit its machinery regularly choose KitchensbyCRW themselves and for family members - “...they know the back door of the business” as Campbell puts it, so this is an endorsement that carries real weight.