There's a new owner and a new home base for Vetrazzo.

Quebec City, Quebec-based Polycor Inc. acquired cementious-slab producer earlier this month, and is in the process of moving its manufacturing plant from Calfornia to Georgia, says François Darmayan, Polycor's head of U.S. operations.



"We liked what the company was doing with the product," Darmayan says. "We like the green aspect of the product, and we like the message Vetrazzo offers in the market." Darmayan, who now oversees the Polycor Vetrazzo line as president of Polycor Stone Corp. (the name for its U.S.-based assets) says that general operations for the product will remain the same ... except for its manufacturing location.

As of last Friday, Darmayan says that "80 percent" of Vetrazzo's production line in Richmond, Calif, had been packed and placed on trucks to a Polycor facility in Tate, Ga. The target date for reassembling the plant and starting the production line is Aug. 1.

Darmayan adds that training on slab finishing is set to begin this week with slabs shipped from the now-discontinued California plant.

The move will allow Vetrazzo C a material made of 85-percent recycled glass with a cement binder C to reach eastern U.S. major markets within a 500-mile radius, qualifying it for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) points for regional sourcing as well for as the use of recycled materials.

Placing the manufacturing plant in Georgia will also lower manufacturing costs. "We're looking to decrease the price point," Darmayan says.

Vetrazzo's current distribution network will stay in place, Darmayan says, while adding the material to Polycor's product line/distribution; it retains Vetrazzo's sales strength on the West Coast, while Polycor's contacts in the northeast U.S. give the material a solid marketing base.

Polycor will also retain Vetrazzo's sales staff and other members of its executive team. James Sheppard, Vetrazzo's president, will also continue with the company "at least through the end of this year," Dormayan adds.

Sheppard formed part of the partnership in 2006 that revamped the operations of Vetrazzo (originally developed a decade earlier in Berkeley, Calif.) and moved production in October of that year to a former Ford Motor Co. plant in Richmond. The company gained large amount of media exposure for its emphasis on sustainability, and the use of its material for countertops in environmentalist/actor Ed Begley Jr.'s home-improvement TV series, Living with Ed.