Category: News

Calhoun, GA, USA, January 27^th, 2022 – CFL Flooring (Creative Flooring Solutions), a pioneer in manufacturing value-added flooring products, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents related to its acoustic multilayer flooring products, further strengthening the Company’s intellectual property portfolio. CFL also holds similar patents in Europe and in other countries around the world.

The granted patents cover the structure of CFL’s acoustic flooring products that offer a solution to one of the bigger challenges in flooring, sound. These products are designed to significantly reduce generated, reflected, or transmitted impact sounds, leading to a performance up to 6x more sound absorbing than standard 5mm SPC with 1mm cork underlay.

The products concerned are commercialized as NovoCore Q in North America and Firmfit Silent in Europe.

“As a leading flooring innovator in the industry we strive to improve the acoustic performance of the products on the market. It is with great pride that we have now found solutions for customer needs for improved sound reducing flooring products” said Thomas Baert, Owner and President of CFL. “This innovation confirms our drive to bring value-added products to the market away from standard commoditized products. Our industry benefits when healthy margins can be obtained throughout the whole supply chain and we are excited to bring these first to market proprietary products to our loyal customer base,” he added.

• CFL Flooring signs new i4F license for Digital Printing
• CFL Flooring’s next-generation rigid core lines to use Hymmen Digital Printing

HAMONT, BELGIUM – i4F®, a group of companies providing patents and technologies to the flooring industry, today announced that CFL Flooring has acquired a Hymmen JUPITER digital printing line for its US facility and, has signed a new digital printing technologies license agreement with i4F. This reinforces CFL’s long term digital printing strategy as well as the company’s commitment to innovation “firsts” whilst reducing its carbon footprint. CFL’s next-generation rigid core produces will be produced using Hymmen’s JUPITER JPT-C print-to-board line.

With some 4,500 employees, CFL Flooring is a global leader and innovator in rigid core manufacturing as well as other hybrid vinyl floor covering solutions. Over the last eighteen months, the company has heavily invested in its state-of-the-art production facility in Calhoun, Georgia (USA), that is now fully operational. The new JUPITER digital printing line will be located in Calhoun and be used to produce CFL’s next-generation rigid core lines.

In addition to the multiple design and production advantages, CFL’s decision to buy the digital printing line was driven by its goal to reduce its carbon footprint as well as to become more sustainable. Digital printing eliminates the need for certain elements, including décor films and plastic wear layers, thus reducing the total amount of PVC use, reducing plastic waste, as well as reducing the impact of supply chain strains linked to production.

Decors and structures of Hymmen´s DLE plus collection 2022

Designed to enable 24/7 industrial production, Hymmen’s JUPITER JPT-C print-to-board lines deliver intelligent and highly precise register accuracy. This ensures the highest levels of color stability and print quality output while maintaining printing speeds of 25-50 meters per minute.

i4F licenses the world’s most advanced digital printing technologies and offers exclusive access to all Hymmen digital printing technologies in the flooring sector. Digital printing will play a crucial role in the future of new material flooring as it enables unlimited design and embossing-in-register flexibility and can be applied to a wide range of materials. This facilitates faster response times to market demands and trends while reducing material waste.

“CFL has long been committed to its vision of leading flooring innovation,” said Thomas Baert, President and co-founder of CFL Flooring. I believe we were the first manufacturer to push rigid core in a massive way. Our aim is to continue to be top of mind with our partners when they think of first to market innovations and second-to-none marketing and customer support. Digital printing is the next logical step.”

 

CFL Flooring (Creative Flooring Solutions), the worldwide leader in Stone Polymer Core (SPC) and other multilayer flooring new materials, has been growing rapidly over the last years. The company now employs 4,500 people and has invested more than US$140 million in the last 18 months. Its second-to-none production facility covering an area of 700,000 ft2 in Calhoun, Georgia (USA) is now fully operational. In addition to its US, Taiwan, Vietnam and southern Shanghai operations, the Company also started a large new facility in Hunan, China for its expansion in the Chinese market. CFL grew about 50 % in 2021 with a very strong order book going into 2022.

The success of CFL over the last years has not gone unnoticed. The founders have decided to let external PE investors join CFL in order to prepare the company for the next growth sprint all the while keeping a strong overall majority ownership. The new investors will allow the company to accelerate its international expansion, as well as further its reach within the Chinese market.

While the investors will not drive operations, they will bring with them, among other things, know-how related to international financing, HR, corporate governance and public relations.

The company will continue to bring first-to-market technologies to the industry allowing its loyal customer base to differentiate and excel in the market. The company is the inventor of waterproof laminate flooring, engineered stone-based flooring, SPC flooring, and several other products out of new materials with new patented technologies coming to market very shortly.

HAMONT, BELGIUM – i4F, a group of companies providing patents and technologies to the flooring industry, today announced that CFL has signed a new license agreement with i4F for its low gloss, matt effect surface finishing technology. The technology, is exclusively available via an i4F license as one of its surface finishing cluster innovations.

Through the use of a sophisticated patented curing process, this technology delivers a highly realistic matt surface on panels with a minimal variance of gloss grade over time. Additionally, the technology significantly improves surface properties on critical dimensions that can be applied to all levels of gloss. This reinforces flooring panels’ micro-scratch resistance levels and makes cleaning easier – on low gloss as well as standard gloss flooring.

Tom van Poyer, CEO of CFL says, “We strive to offer the market high demand flooring solutions and that’s why we selected this unique technology only available from i4F. Experience has shown us that i4F has the required know-how and flair to find the latest and greatest flooring industry innovations. This NatureTrend coating will be a key part of our Firmfit Original and Firmfit Silent collections being introduced across Europe in February 2022. Surfaces 2022 visitors will be able to see our more commercial PureCoat Rigid Core lines using the same technology on our booth in Las Vegas.”

i4F’s CEO, John Rietveldt, adds, “We are delighted that CFL has signed a new i4F license for this highly sophisticated surface finishing technology. This innovative technology not only meets growing consumer demand trends for low gloss/matt flooring, but also delivers some truly meaningful benefits including reduced light reflection under any angle, easy maintenance and enhanced surface performance.”

Read in the press

Thomas Baert, owner of CFL, helped host customers for an exclusive look into the new 700,000 s/f state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that has been in construction for over a year.

“This marks a next step in our plan to become a global manufacturer,” Baert said, “drastically increasing  the convenience of working with our partners and distributors.” Due to travel limitations, this was also the first time Baert was able to view the actual facility and see firsthand the progress that his team has made in building out the factory, office, and showroom space.

“The excitement of our customers was amazing!” Says Perry Coker, CEO of CFL North America, “We have been talking to them about U.S. production in a conceptual way for the past couple of years, so we were extremely proud to have our customers visit and see that everything is actually coming to fruition.”

In recent months, CFL has added numerous team members and eventually will add 350+ new jobs to the local north Georgia area.

In support of CFL’s ambition to expand its global footprint in the flooring industry, Hans Hendrickx has been appointed as their new Chief Commercial Officer and will report directly to CFL’s CEO Tom Van Poyer.
Hans will lead the Export Commercial Division to ensure continued growth and implement best practices across the different export markets.  Having served for more than 25 years at both European SME and US Fortune 500 companies with a strong focus on key account and end user development, as well as distribution management, Hans brings a wide range of skills and experiences to the table.

Tom Van Poyer, CEO, stated” CFL flooring – a global leader in SPC flooring, WPC flooring and Water resistant laminate – has taken many steps over the last few years to ensure it can offer its customers a full range of flooring solutions, from entry level to high-end added-value products, with top notch branding solutions and training support.  Due to the complexity of the product ranges and the new factories which we are starting up in 2021, hiring a high-caliber, experienced executive to oversee this has been well overdue. Hans will be a great addition to our talented team and help us to reach the next level.”

“I’m thrilled to be joining CFL and more broadly the flooring industry,” said CCO Hendrickx.  “I’ve had the chance to work with different industries throughout my career and am extremely impressed with the pace of change and innovation.  Flooring really is something special. I’m excited to work along people who have helped shape it and looking forwards to help push it even further!”

On June 24th, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced that Creative Flooring Solutions (CFL), a manufacturer of laminate, wood, and luxury vinyl will create 300 jobs and invest more than $70 million in a new manufacturing facility in Calhoun, GA. “We are thrilled that CFL has chosen Gordon County to expand their business operations to more effectively reach their customer base,” said Governor Kemp. “The impact of this announcement will be felt across the region as the company seeks to employ 300 hardworking Georgians.”

Founded in Shanghai in 2004, CFL employs 3,500 at three factories, multiple offices, and distribution centers around the world. Thomas Baert, owner and president of CFL, stated “This marks a next step in our plan to become a global company, and we are looking forward to contributing to the economic wellbeing of the community in Calhoun, Gordon County, and Georgia.”

“The CFL factory and showrooms in Calhoun will drastically increase convenience of working with our partners and distributors,” said Tom Van Poyer, CFL owner and CEO. “Being able to supply products produced in the United States will allow us not only to sustain our leadership position in product design and product innovation, but also create a platform allowing second-to-none service through reduced delivery times.”

CFL will locate to a newly constructed 252,000-square-foot facility at 3576 US Highway 41 in Calhoun, with plans to build another 250,000 square feet in the near future. Perry Coker, CEO of CFL North America, added “This certainly is another major step for CFL. Most of our customers have been true partners for many years, and we have grown together. It just makes sense to make this commitment to produce closer to them, and all the benefits that go with that. But we still also have the advantage of using all our assets around the world to continue to provide unique and innovative flooring products.”

To read the full release from the Governor’s office click here

CFL has received a series of important patents in 2019 related to flooring on the basis of Mgo (magnesium) core with a locking as well as other composition patent on certain multilayered flooring. The company announces representation of these patents by I4F , Unilin and Valinge with whom it has recently signed seperate representation contracts. The launch of the commercialization of these patents will start on the upcoming flooring exhibitions in Las Vegas and Domotex Asia/Chinafloor in Shanghai. This agreement relates to a series of patents applied before January 2020.
Thomas Baert, President CFL Flooring. We are looking forward to rolling out these exciting new technologies separately via I4F, Valinge and Unilin. CFL is known to be the innovator of Asia and we are excited to be working on the flooring products of the next decade.

Read the release on Floor Daily

CFL’s new production facilities in Taiwan and Vietnam are up and running, with initial shipments of laminate and SPC having started in March 2019.    This new production not only increases CFL’s total capacity globally, but also helps to address the tariff challenges for the U.S. market.   Thomas Baert, Co-Owner of CFL, advised “In the past several months, we have worked diligently to expand our production outside of China.  CFL will continue efforts to provide optimal solutions for our valued partners.”     

– I4F receives licensing rights for new engineered stone, wood veneer composite base board
– Patented board resolves most moisture, heat issues associated with natural wood flooring
– Environmentally-friendly engineered stone composite works on all floor levels

WILLEMSTAD, CURAÇAO– I4F, a group of companies providing patents and technologies to the flooring industry, today announced that it has signed a patent partnership agreement with CFL Flooring for a new engineered stone, wood veneer composite base flooring board. The breakthrough engineered stone, veneer board resolves virtually all the disadvantages currently associated with natural wood flooring by reducing moisture intake and flammability on any floor level or room type.  In addition to I4F receiving licensing rights for the new board, the partnership also opens up future collaboration in the area of patented technologies.  CFL is fast becoming one of China’s leading flooring manufacturers and a leading Asian flooring innovator.

The new sound absorbing board provides a stone-wood composite base that keeps the wood veneer level dry and heat resistant by substantially retaining moisture and heat within the stone-wood base. As a result, this new board can be used in any room and is particularly suited to those prone to high levels of heat and humidity like wet rooms, kitchens and greenhouses as well as on all floor levels, even basements. The new board is also environmentally-friendly as it uses less wood and eliminates the need for any sub-flooring.

Thomas Baert, President of CFL, said, “We are excited about working with I4F to promote this breakthrough technology. This technology, developed by Mr. Mondo Pallon, is the beginning of many more to come over the next months and years. Innovation is in the DNA of CFL Flooring and now secured through many approved and pending patents.”

 Commenting on the new patent partnership, John Rietveldt, I4F CEO, added, “We believe CFL’s new engineered stone, veneer composite board could become the greatest thing since parquet!  This latest partnership with CFL underscores our strategy to seek out and market flooring technologies that have a profound impact on today’s flooring landscape. This innovation resolves age-old issues linked to natural wood flooring while bringing exciting new possibilities back into the market. We will continue to work, in partnership, with the world’s leading and most innovative companies to find more exciting innovations that truly make a difference.”