Ceramics, US related industries arrive in the Sassuolo district

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The closing figures for the 33rd edition of Coverings, the most important exhibition in North America for ceramics and natural stone, arrived a few hours ago, and the optimism of Italian ceramic entrepreneurs is even surpassed by the numbers: visitors to the fair have increased by 50% compared to the 2022 edition and almost 27 thousand professionals – including distributors, contractors, dealers and architects – filled the stands of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, the second largest exhibition center in the States, after the McCormick in Chicago. And the positive impression gathered in the four days in Florida among the more than 60 Made in Italy brands (the most important and monumental foreign delegation in the 450 thousand square meters of pavilions, where more than a thousand companies from 40 countries exhibited) is confirmed by the incoming orders in recent weeks from the American market, which is offsetting the difficulties in Europe. After the slowdown at the end of 2022 and at the beginning of 2023 – affected by the increase in logistics costs, the accumulation of inventories in warehouses and inflation – the stars and stripes demand is rewarding tiles and slabs in the Sassuolo district, not only for their quality and design (American tastes are rapidly approaching Italian ones), but for the attention to sustainability and green certifications. An optimism also shared by the manufacturers of technologies, present in two separate pavilions within Coverings, thanks to the collaboration with Ice Agenzia: Acimac with machinery and equipment for ceramics and Marmomacchine with machinery for working stone.

Design and sustainability drive exports

Large slabs printed with tropical patterns that become picture-walls, 3D surfaces that make the tile indistinguishable from wood, veins and colors of quartz and granite on ceramic surfaces that seem created by mother nature, not digitally made: the Made in Italy stands have enchanted the Americans, «we have collected orders between now and 2025», says Giorgio Romani, president of the Romani group of the same name in Casalgrande (Reggio Emilia), a trendsetter in the sector for 55 years. Business is driven by the commercial segment, they say from the stand of Unicomstarker, a company from Fiorano Modenese which since 1976 «has seen many ups and downs – explains co-founder Antonio Poggi – but already last year, despite the increase in container prices and product availability problems, in the United States we had fun and after the slow start of 2023 we are now confident that American contractors are buying again». While American families, amid banking crises and record inflation, have stopped investing in their homes. «Our new 4D ceramic is arousing great interest among US buyers – underlines Federica Minozzi, CEO of Iris Ceramica Group – because it is a three-dimensional slab which we added the fourth dimension of sustainability (it will be fired in an oven with a mixture of hydrogen and methane) and replaces the most precious quarry stone materials offering the same aesthetic effect and even higher technical characteristics. We are not competitive on price, but we become competitive if we measure polluting emissions, because even in the USA new buildings have a maximum CO2 budget (given by the sum of all the materials with which they are built) and the less you contribute the more they are worth. And Made in Italy wins». The Italian high-end «finds the ideal test bench in the American market to be tested», comments Paolo Lamberti, president of Acimac and owner of Tecnografica di Castellarano (Reggio Emilia), starting with pads for the ceramic industry to then diversify into the design of wallpapers and decorative backlit vitrified panels, which received excellent feedback from Coverings participants, 77% from the United States.

Not just containers, spaces for direct investments

«The American market is for us the first ever for exports, we aimed at it several years ago with targeted products and time has proved us right. We strongly believe in its development and in the group’s plans there is in fact the opening of a production plant here», adds Marco Mastria, foreign sales director of Ceramica Rondine, a company from the Sassuolo district that joined the Italcer group in 2022. The theme of production internationalization emerged overwhelmingly during the four days in Florida, because direct supervision is today the best way to offer American customers a product in certain times and quantities and to protect themselves from Spanish, Turkish, Indian, without the yoke of carrier containers (with costs shot up from $2,500 pre-Covid to $10,000 and now back down to $5,000) also because long-distance transport greatly affects the cost of the product and the efficiency of the service: Made in Italy has already record price lists, 70% higher than the average of tiles imported into the USA. If five Italian brands already produce on American soil for local customers (Florim, Iris Ceramica, Panaria, Atlas Concorde, Del Conca) today with IRA incentives launched by Biden, the direct investment option becomes more interesting than ever for all the big names in Sassuolo. «Covid has strengthened our “Made in the USA” and I see a very rosy future for those who have opened a plant here, demand is more stable than in Europe and customers are approaching large slabs, which we were the first to bring overseas 12 years ago. There will be interesting developments and we are making our contribution with a great commitment to training installers», says Rodolfo Panisi, CEO of Florim USA, which employs over 300 people in Clarksville, Tennessee, where a small “clone” of the Emilian ceramic supply chain.

The forecasts waiting for Cersaie

On the forecasts for 2023, the industrialists of Sassuolo are not overwhelmed. If the recovery seems to take shape in the USA, the signals from France and Germany are instead heavily negative, the first two basins of Made in Italy in terms of export volumes, ahead of the USA, which however become second after the French, overtaking the Germans, if we think in terms of value: the United States centralizes 13% of the 6 billion euros of Italian exports in 2022 (preliminary results from Confindustria Ceramica). «2022 is a comparison parameter that we must forget, let’s think with respect to 2019 pre Covid and 2021, because last year it was doped on the one hand by the hoarding of ceramic material by distributors after the health and logistics emergency and, on the other, by increases in price lists from 15 to 20% to compensate for the surge in energy costs which have translated into record turnovers», warns Filippo Manuzzi, CEO of Ceramica Sant’Agostino, a leading Este brand for porcelain stoneware. «The cooling of the markets at the beginning of the year, after the boom of 2022, was expected, but the demand for ceramics in the world is there and is growing, it must simply be seized – comments Vittorio Borelli, head of the Fincibec group of Sassuolo -. Today we are ready to face any emergency. We survived the closure of factories due to Covid, the stop in supplies of clays from Ukraine that forced us to reformulate the dough overnight, the prices of energy and sea transport by sea went crazy, and we are still here , leader in the sector». And the first challenge for ceramic Made in Italy in the USA is to wrest market shares from carpet and Lvt-Luxury vinyl tile, which represent two-thirds of the flooring materials of American homes (ceramic tiles are still from a decade to 12.5%) especially now that sensitivity to the issue of sustainability and environmental impact is also growing overseas. It will be the autumn appointment of Cersaie in Bologna (25 – 29 September, 40th edition), the number one appointment worldwide, to confirm whether the spring optimism that arrived from Florida was well placed.