There is a lot of Dutch-made Van Voorden stone quarrying and processing equipment still working in the UK and Maveco, the Van Voorden successor, is helping to keep it all in working order by supplying spares and upgrades. But Henri Bohncke, the Maveco Director, would like to be selling more new machines and has decided his best way of doing that is to have them made in China.

The Maveco name is seen on new machinery in the UK – in fact, a new saw has just been delivered to a company in Manchester. But Maveco believes its new low prices will see even more of it making its way into Britain.

Maveco machines will still be developed in the Netherlands and the engineers there will still offer a quick response repair and maintenance service, as well as a special projects and customisation service, but having the machines made in China has brought the price down, which, in the current market, is an attractive prospect.

Maveco has already made the move to China and is outsourcing manufacturing and assembling of standard equipment to factories in Beijing and Xiamen.

At the same time, Maveco has opened a large showroom in Eindhoven, where the machines are displayed so that customers from across Europe can see them working.

Not that Maveco only sells the machines in Europe. Russia, India, Vietnam, Kenya and Senegal, in particular, are also good markets for the company, and an essential part of Maveco’s strategy, says Henri, is the ability to offer clients global quality stone machines that are “not too fussy, not too complicated” with short delivering times.