Portland White. Carrara. Calacatta. Statuario. These are the names Granite Transformations has chosen for its new ‘Marble’ Collection of engineered stone surfaces.

Granite Transformations offers to add a 6.5mm veneer to existing worktops, providing a transformation that can often be achieved in a day. Its products are man made.

The newly launched Marble Collection offers, says Granite Transformations, "the look and elegance of a natural marble stone but with all the performance characteristic of a Granite Transformations engineered stone surface".

Granite Transformations says of the four initial designs in its Marble Collection: "Carrara, featuring a traditional marble look of white and blue-grey soft veins; Calacatta, with its understated gold veining; Portland White, a natural vintage cement look; Statuario, a refined, yet impressive grey veined marble on a white background."

As well as being used to cover kitchen worktops and splashbacks, Granite Transformations' thin slabs are also used in bathrooms and utility rooms, and as floor and wall coverings.

Stone Federation’s Quarry Group, supported by other stone organisations in Europe, including EuroRoc, of which the British Federation is a member, has been championing the case for ‘geographical identification’ (GI) protection for natural stone (see ‘From the rock face’ below).

Albion Stone, which mines limestone from the Dorset island of Portland, has been among the advocates for extending GI, which currently only covers food and drink products such as Melton Mowbray pork pies and Champagne.

Portland is one of the earliest examples of a stone name being taken for a man-made product – Ordinary Portland Cement was so called when it was invented in the 19th century because it was said to look like the stone.