In 2020, it was anything but business as usual.

An international pandemic, the worst in a century, slowed down the FDMC 300 group of companies, but didn’t stop them.

In 2020, sales for the FDMC 300 group of companies amounted to $57.883 billion, actually a slight gain of 1.25 percent over the previous year.

What happened during the year 2020 wasn’t all bad or all good.

Many companies reported some kind of production shutdown during the spring. Depending on where they were, they had to comply with new rules and regulations that in many cases made it difficult to operate.

Companies making store fixtures and retail displays suffered during the slowdown, and some of these companies have closed permanently. Many companies making residential furniture sold through retail stores reported lower sales.

Some companies did well. Some of the larger companies that sold furniture through online platforms reported higher sales. And many cabinet companies and millwork providers reported sales gains during 2020 due to customers upgrading their homes.

It should be pointed out that many privately held companies did not provide a sales figure to us, or requested that the number be kept the same as it was in 2019. We believe that many of these companies had lower sales in 2020.

A year ago, in 2019, sales for the FDMC 300 group of companies grew 4.5 percent, to reach $57.171 billion.

The FDMC 300 is a group of the 300 largest cabinet, furniture, millwork, store fixture, office/contract and component producers in North America. This annual summary of wood manufacturing firms' sales performance is published annually by FDMC magazine. The 2021 FDMC 300 is sponsored by Pollmeier Inc.

We will provide full coverage of the FDMC 300 in the February issue of FDMC magazine, and will focus on specific market segments in later issues.

Additional information can be found at www.woodworkingnetwork.com. The full list of 300 companies from 2019 is also online at https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/fdmc-300