Slippery Rock Soapbox: Some Observations on Quartz Stone
Mark McMunn
We are all so busy these days meeting deadlines, sending out invoices and keeping equipment running that it is easy to overlook major changes that are occurring in the industry. Some of the most profound changes are being driven by the explosion in the specification of quartz stone that appears to be displacing natural stone as the preferred material specified for most commercial finish-outs.
What exactly are those changes and why should it matter? The answer to that question depends on where your business is operating on the supply chain. However, no matter where you are in the chain, changes are already occurring.
To begin, we need to see just how explosive the demand for quartz stone has been. The owner of Caesarstone, Sdot Yam of Israel, is the only publicly traded producer of engineered quartz and thus the only source of verifiable sales numbers.
Below are the annual sales figures of Caesarstone from 2008 to 2015:
2008 $169,203,000
2009 $162,634,000
2010 $198,791,000
2011 $259,671,000
2012 $296,000,000
2013 $356,550,000
2014 $447,400,000
2015 $499,520,000
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Mass-produced quartz stone slabs present both opportunities and limitations for fabricators. |
From 2008 to 2011 sales had increased one and a half times, and then have almost doubled since 2011. These types of gains are very impressive for any company, but what is more impressive is that these sales increases were happening as the “great recession” was wreaking havoc on the industry. Their sales only dropped by roughly $6 million from 2008 to 2009, and that’s a strong signal for the coming demand that we are still experiencing today.
What is interesting is that the last time we saw such a great change in material specifications was after the recent recession, from 1987 to 1991. Before that recession, marble was the dominant specified stone with granite being just a small amount of the demand. After the recession had ended, the market completely flipped over with granite becoming the dominant specified material, and marble taking a backseat.
The changing of one natural stone for another was not anything unusual, but now a man-made material is displacing natural materials, and that has some interesting ramifications. Lets consider some of the possible reasons for this increasing demand for quartz.
From the point of view of the designer or architect, quartz is a real problem-solver and timesaver. No longer does the design professional have to make trips to several yards just to make sure that they get just that right shade of stone or veining, because the small 2 x 2 samples on the sample board are only consistent with any slabs that are either in New York, Houston or LA. Slabs of quartz are all the same size among manufacturers, and that lessens the arguments about the number and location of joints required. Simply put, the consistency of color and slab size greatly increases the time a design professional can put into actual design, versus going on a wild goose chase for something that may not be available in natural stone.
The fabricator benefits from the same consistencies mentioned above, but also benefits from the strength of quartz stone during the fabrication process. With natural stone, the fabricator has to be very careful about natural seams that are not always visible, but always seem to suffer breakage at the hands of shop novices unfamiliar with the fragility of the different types of stone.
That is not to say that quartz does not have its challenges, because it certainly does, but these challenges are far outweighed by the benefits of the controlled manufacture of the stone. The degree of control in manufacturing quartz stone is similar to how fast food chains have great quality control over things like french fries or burger patties.
Finally, the consumer benefits by having a high performance surface that will last for years if properly maintained and cared for.
It appears that everyone one is winning here, but there are some losers, and the ones with the most to lose are the quarriers of natural stone… and the consumer.
Now that the technology of quartz manufacturing has reached a point that almost any color natural stone can be duplicated for shade and veining, then why quarry anything at all? What good will it do to find, quarry and produce a new and exciting color stone and try to get a premium for it, if the public is willing to accept a synthetic version of it?
We have already seen this phenomenon happen with the almost perfect duplication of the Calacatta colors from Carrara, Italy. One would think that the design profession would look down on synthetic copies of a marble with Calacatta’s storied provenance, but you would be wrong. Also, is there anything that the quarriers of Calacatta marbles can do about this? Sadly, the quarriers of the Calacatta marbles have found out the hard way that you cannot copyright nature’s natural patterns or shades of color.
The cost of natural Calacatta marble appears to have put the consumer in the pro-synthetic corner, but is it not strange that anyone would want to boast about their synthetic Calacatta marble, when the genuine material is the source of the prestige? Is there such a thing as “derivative prestige”? The consumer loses here because the consumer is not actually in control of choice but is being willingly herded to the choices that ostensibly benefits them – but actually is benefiting others.
The point here is not to expose any hidden agenda of the quartz industry because there is not one. Rather, it is the fabricators that need to be aware of these factors mentioned above, and how they will affect their business.
Just to mention one benefit, although quartz removes a lot of uncertainties in the fabrication process, the trade-off is a shorter learning curve to fabricate quartz versus natural stone, creating a lower skill barrier to entry into the business. The search for profits follows the path of least resistance, but the least resistant path also attracts hordes seeking those same profits. If this describes your situation keep yourself updated with the latest technology or prepare for a continued profit squeeze.