Küberit is currently the market leader in the production of aluminium profiles for textile and resilient floor coverings and profile systems for all hard floor coverings such as laminate, prefinished parquet and solid wood flooring. Küberit concentrated on the materials aluminium, brass and stainless steel. After the European market leaders for laminate, wooden flooring and resilient coverings became customers, Küberit had already made a name for itself as a supplier to the flooring industry by 1990.

Pandemic caused boom
With Patrick Welscheit we talk about how Küberit is now positioning itself in the German - and by extension European and global - market. The opening question was an obvious one: how did the company, which exports to more than 60 countries, wriggle its way through the Covid pandemic?

"I shouldn't say it out loud, but the pandemic was a very successful period for us," he responds. "That is not surprising. Suddenly, a lot of people were sitting at home and renovating. It meant that demand literally boomed."

"What we are now noticing, however, is that there is a downturn in terms of floor sales here in Germany and also beyond. We are also expecting a bit less orders in the coming weeks and months, but I don't think this will have a big impact on our results. In any case, we expect the balance will be better by the end of the year. Although you never know, of course..."

Dealing with raw materials
So the war in Ukraine and the accompanying soaring energy prices did not have a negative effect on Küberit?
"No, not really, especially not in the area of raw materials. As Küberit we not only have a large stock, but we work almost exclusively with European suppliers, so we have few problems, even with aluminium. The recent extreme increases in raw material prices have caused us problems and we have had to pass these on in the form of a price increase, like all other manufacturers.”

"Our customers who work with wood face much bigger problems, because this material comes in large quantities from Russia and Ukraine. I have already heard producers claim that parquet will become a real luxury product and I am not surprised. Even laminates are affected.”
Energy prices also do not appear to have as great an impact for Küberit as they do for many other manufacturers. This is partly due to a far-reaching programme, which focuses on issues such as the generation of own energy and an in-house striving towards economy and recycling. As a result, price increases could be kept at a reasonable level.

Protecting the environment and resources
Patrick Welscheit: "The energy price, the price of raw materials, increased transport costs and so on did lead to us having to up the price a bit more than usual, but we kept it modest. Especially in the field of energy, we are putting a lot of effort into absorbing the energy and raw material problem as well as possible through various in-house means."

"Enrolling in the ECOPROFIT programme turned out to be an excellent choice. As part of the programme, we developed various measures and succeeded in saving 197.4 tonnes of CO2 and 243,000 kWh of electricity in one year, thus significantly reducing our operating costs. In addition, last year we recycled 215 tonnes of recyclable materials and used 75 per cent recycled secondary aluminium in the production of our profiles and mouldings."

"In addition, we took many other measures: switching to LED lighting throughout the building, for example, which saved us 80,000 kWh of electricity and therefore 28.8 tonnes of CO2. We also reduced the base load in the high bay warehouse and in the off-take stations, saving 48,000 kWh of electricity and 17.3 tonnes of CO2. The spatial optimisation of the business areas resulted in a 115,000 kWh reduction in electricity consumption, which reduced the CO2 balance by 29 tonnes. In addition, the additional installation of a large number of solar panels on the roof is also planned, which means that we will save more and more CO² from 2023 onwards.”

"If there is one thing I would like to make clear, it is that we, like many other companies in Germany, are fully committed to the transition to not just green energy, but total sustainability. In doing so, we look beyond our own company and do not lose sight of the environment. That is why at Küberit we not only focus on the recycling of raw materials, but since 2020, as a profile manufacturer, we use electricity from renewable resources.”

Sales market and finding personnel
The interview also revealed that the company is hardly affected by the boycott against Russia. 14 years ago, Russia was still its largest export market, but nowadays the focus is mainly on export to Europe and only specifically overseas.

“We want to further consolidate and expand the European market, for which we have already taken the first step and our new internet platforms will be supplemented in other languages in the future. Like so many other entrepreneurs, finding enough people, especially technically trained people, seems to be the problem. There is simply too little supply to meet our demand", Patrick Welscheit responds. "On top of that, the problems for us have become worse because a bridge was damaged nearby and the motorway will be closed for many years. This bridge problem is already far-reaching, not only for transport logistics, but also for colleagues who now need more than twice the time to get to work - under such conditions it is difficult to find new employees. We will train more people ourselves in the future in order to avoid a shortage of qualified workers.”
Innovations

To finish off, we sounded off about the innovative things that Küberit is currently working on.
"For 2022 we are launching some new profile solutions and an additional and new finish in the colour black anodised. New are our two-part screw systems “PPS®” in anodised black and for some of our clip systems we added the black colour in powder coating. Also new are two new stair nosing profiles for parquet that is glued to stairs, and the range of rounded corners is further expanded."