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INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH
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The AKO Elastic 4.5 carpet underlay is a truly classic product – in stores for 60 yea now as of 2023.
The presenter shows customers an overview of the key properties of this innovative rug anti-slip product, with an eye-catching icon highlighting its safety function.
presenter we set up at the POS. The 30 m rolls with widths from 60 – 240 cm are mainly found in larger retail stores and from wholesalers. Up- scale retailers definitely enjoy the widest mar- gins.
Carpet Home: How exactly are your carpet un- derlays made ?
Johanna Kolckmann: The entire production chain is right here, so everything is “Made in Germany” from start to finish. We have had ten looms in use since 1988 to weave our base materials out of PES glass yarn, in various mesh widths. In a dipping process the fabric gets coated with a special paste, which now is also PVC-free. The product gels inside the coating machine under high heat, sort of like cake bat- ter. We use a hotmelt system to laminate our nonwovens.
Carpet Home: AKO has numerous products that have been popular on the market for decades. What are the biggest ones ?
Cornelius Sorg: The biggest product is defi- nitely the AKO Elastic 4.5 carpet underlay that came out in 1964 – an incredible 59 years on the market. Although our AKO Ideal tablecloth un- derlay has been around for an extremely long time too – 56 years. Our annual carpet underlay production is around two million square metres in total.
Carpet Home: AKO is constantly developing new products; the array now includes yoga mats and baby mats. Tell us about you introduced these.
Johanna Kolckmann: At our company, the spir- it of invention is in our DNA, basically. Some ideas seem to develop all on their own even. We see what our products are capable of, and we see what the market wants. And that is how we move into new business segments – our custom- ers end up getting great new products alongside the ones they are already making use of. Like
PHOTOS. AKO