With leading tile manufacturers now offering ranges of natural stone as well as large format porcelain tiles intended to look like stone, and stone wholesalers offering an increasing range of engineered products, toes could start to get trodden on. NSS looks at the latest moves.
The end user’s love of ever larger format floor and wall coverings has been good news for stone companies, which can adapt to the change a lot quicker than the makers of porcelain tiles can change their production lines.
But tile manufacturers have now changed their production lines and are offering ever larger format tiles, both porcelain and natural stone. Nicobond, for example, has its Sunriver range of large format porcelain tile that uses the latest in inkjet technology to closely replicate the warm, tactile character of Quartzite in sizes up to 600 x 1200mm. And Pilkington has introduced a range of porcelain tiles up to 900 x 450mm in what it calls ‘Natural Stone’ and ‘Wood Effect’ under the Meissen brand.
But while the tile manufacturers are pushing into the territory traditionally held by stone processors, stone companies are also taking more of the market traditionally considered tile territory with new products that allow them to compete in the porcelain sector. This new type of engineered product is increasingly making its way into the repertoire of the stone processor. It is coming not as 600 x 600mm tiles but as large slabs to be processed as bespoke products in the same way as granite and engineered quartz.
As ever, Cosentino, the giant Spanish company, is aiming to be a leader in the development and has invested k98million (some of it kindly donated by the EU) to build a 500,000m2 factory to produce a new product it calls Dekton.
Dekton is not a straightforward porcelain but combines the technology of making porcelain with that of making float glass. The result is 3.2 x 1.44m sheets of material in various thicknesses between 7mm and 35mm that are processed in a similar way to quartz or granite on the same CNC workcentres, although with a different set of tools.
Dekton is due to be launched officially in the spring but Cosentino has been creating interest in it in the past few months by inviting leading processors across Europe (including the UK) to go and have a look at it at the new factory in Spain.
There were also samples of it at the Surface Design Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London, this month (February). They did not form part of the display on the stand, which concentrated on the latest Suede finish available on the company’s market leading Silestone quartz, but were being shown to some visitors behind the scenes.
Cosentino has put a lot of effort into developing processes for printing patterns on to Dekton and creating new finishes – it says it has 16 different finishing processes in its huge new factory and that combining them gives the market a product with unique textures and patterns.
Cosentino says it spent six years developing Dekton. The resulting product is said to be truly non-porous, so the increased surface area created by textured finishes will not result in a greater likelihood of staining, which sometimes happens with quartz and natural stone.
Another new product to help stone processors expand their share of the interiors market that was introduced to the UK a couple of years ago by London wholesaler MGLW comes from The Size, another Spanish manufacturer. You can see what the material looks like on the walls of Bank underground station in London.
Now Northampton-based wholesaler B-Stone is also selling The Size products along with its Diresco and Technistone quartz ranges.
The Size started trading in 2009 and two years later introduced NeoLith, porcelain slabs in thicknesses of 2mm, 5mm and 10mm in sizes up to 3.6 x 1.2m.
Being so thin, even at that size it is still a lot lighter than quartz or granite, although it does need careful handling and careful processing. Because of that, B-Stone has established some approved fabricators that have been trained in processing the material and who will process it for companies that do not want to fabricate the products themselves.
Another porcelain technology product is Techlam, supplied in the UK by Levantina. It is just 3mm thick and weighs only 7kg per square metre. It is supplied packaged up in boxes of 3m2 each. Techlam was part of a major push in tiles by Levantina last year.
Pilkington is another company that has identified the increasing popularity of large format tiles with consumers and specifiers in both residential and commercial applications. They call their tiles ‘Natural Stone’ (although they are not) and ‘Wood Effect’. They are available is sizes up to 900mm x 450mm under the Meissen brand name.
Pilkington also understands the marketing advantage of issues such as sustainability and hygiene. It coats the tiles with SmartSilver antibacterial technology and promotes “energy-efficient production processes that maintain ecological balance” supported by inclusion into thefuturebuild.com web portal of sustainable wall and flooring materials.
Another sheet product, although yet to make much of an impression in the UK, is Stoneglass, said to combine the advantages of glass and the strength and versatility of stone and quartz and, like the other new generations of sheet products for processing by the stone industry, is being marketed for just about anything stone can be used for, including external cladding.
Of course, the makers of engineered quartz have also been trying to convince customers that their products can be used for more than just worktops as the market for worktops has contracted.
The makers of the major brands in quartz also continue to offer ever whiter whites, blacker blacks and new colours every season in order to have something to shout about in an attempt to differentiate themselves and justify a higher price point.
Nevertheless, in austere times price plays a greater part and even Cosentino has introduced a lower price own-brand product for distributors in order to capture a sector of the market it was losing out on (see the International Quartz story on the previous page).
Other wholesalers have sourced keenly priced products, usually from the Far East – Pisani has Hanstone, Brachot-Hermant has Unistone, The Marble & Granite Centre has Colorquartz… and many suppliers also stock some quartz for the budget end of the market, even if it is only in black and white, where price comparisons are most often made.
Not all the sharpest prices come from the Far East. Cimstone, which is made in Turkey and distributes in the UK from its headquarters in Northampton, also combines the strength of a brand with a mid-range price.
The range is seeing some considerable changes in March as slow moving colours give way to the latest trends in interiors. The new products include improved marble effects, a new purer black and black mirrored options, plus contemporary block colours.
Cimstone will be debuting the new products again at the Natural Stone Show in ExCeL London 30 April–2 May. After exhibiting at the Stone Show two years ago, it is believed to have become the fastest growing brand in the country.
Compac, with UK depots in Heston, Middlesex, and Wakefield, has been expanding its range of ‘technological marble’, which it promotes as being as polishable as natural stone to maintain its shine and original appearance, but lighter. Its quartz worksurfaces include the Nature Range, which it says is the first quartz worksurface manufactured using ‘bio-resins’ made from renewable organic sources.
Just about all those supplying quartz in the UK say sales last year were better than they had been in 2011.
Still, with the interiors market having lost some high street and edge-of-town kitchen bathroom & bedroom outlets since its heady pre-2008 days, and with some of the stone processors who supplied them also having disappeared (albeit some of them only temporarily), the sector is, perhaps, looking a little crowded with product suppliers.
Nevertheless, still more companies are coming into Britain.
The latest is Quartzforms, made in Germany and being distributed in the UK by QF Distribution (QFD), in Chelmsford, Essex, a new company set up with Philip Cole as its Managing Director and Richard Barrett, at one time with Cosentino, as Sales Director. Quartzforms was launched on to the UK market this month at the Surface Design Show.
Although manufactured in Germany, Quartzforms is owned by the Scapin family from Italy that has been involved in the stone industry for more than 30 years. It is this combination of Italian drive and design flair and German precision engineering that Quartzforms believes will set it apart from other products on the market.
QFD says it will keep up to 1,500 slabs in stock in the UK and that with deliveries from Germany taking only three days to arrive, customers will have access to more than 15,000 slabs of the 50 different colours in three thicknesses and three finishes held in Germany for immediate dispatch.
It is intended that Quartzforms will be available through national and regional fabricators and stonemasons. QFD plans to have the products on display at specialist kitchen retailers throughout the UK so that the product range can be seen and touched by consumers. It plans to list those outlets on the QFD website.
Richard Barrett says: “We’re here to help with all possible questions and assistance regarding specifications and design and I hope that our personal approach to the market and our customers will enable us to develop the long term relationships we can all benefit from.”