During Aquafil USA‘s inaugural celebration of its second manufacturing facility in Cartersville, President Franco Rossi retraced the Italian textile firm’s growth over the past 16 years in North Georgia into what he called its “early adulthood.”
With Claudio Bisogniero, Italy’s ambassador to the U.S., Giulio Bonazzi, Aquafil Group‘s CEO, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and more than 250 invited guests looking on at the May 29 event, Mr. Rossi spoke of the company’s “zero to 60” growth as an “incredible journey, with a few bounces on the road but a lot of fun.”
He also referred to what he called the evolution of the carpet fiber manufacturer as epitomizing “organic growth” without any acquisitions, and extending the metaphor to the extent of saying the company had developed from “a caterpillar into a butterfly.”
That butterfly is now the largest Italian-owned company operating in Georgia and in two and a half years has expanded its production capacity by 30 percent, generating more than $150 million, almost a quarter of its parent Aquafil Group’s global annual revenues exceeding $580 million.
The first manufacturing facility now contains the extrusion department, which takes the first step in producing the company’s innovative “nylon 6,” 100 percent regenerated nylon that is made from global waste collected from landfills, coastlines and oceans and used to manufacture new carpets and apparel.
Nylon 6 has been a staple of the industry since it was first trademarked in 1952 and is used widely for commercial and residential applications. In 2011, however, Aquafil perfected the technology to regenerate the nylon so it can be used again – good as new.
What’s also new is that Aquafil is reclaiming the scraps under an aggressive sustainable strategy even to the point that they are destined to become the sole source of its commercial, automotive and residential carpet applications.
Aquafil predicts that its ECONYL Regeneration System will be responsible for reclaiming 10.5 million pounds of spent carpet from landfills in 2015 and 30 million in 2016.
Since Cartersville is located in the heart of Georgia’s cluster of carpet and textile manufacturing companies, Aquafil has relatively easy access to high volumes of used carpet that otherwise would be destined for landfills or incinerators.
It also collects scrap globally including used fish nets that litter beaches and oceans around the world and works with fishermen’s associations and ports to establish a collection network.
The older facility also holds the company’s shearing technology operation to process the used carpet and provide the material for the regeneration system, which is located in facilities in Slovenia owned by the Aquafil Group.
Once the material is processed through the regeneration system, it is made into carpets, sportswear, swimwear and hosiery at its other plants on three continents including Italy, Croatia, Germany, the United Kingdom, China and Thailand in addition to Slovenia and the U.S.
Being part of this global supply chain was merely “a dream” at the time that the parent opened in 1999 its first expansion beyond Europe in a 2,000 square-foot facility on Cartersville’s River Road, Mr. Rossi said.
As if to underscore its Italian heritage, Mr. Rossi referred to the group as “a fertile mother” which has given birth to Aquafil USA and 14 other Aquafil facilities around the world.
He made it clear that the company remained a family, closely-held operation, and recalled that when Mr. Bonazzi’s father first saw the facility on River Road, he goaded him, saying “Well, this is a nice tire plant, let’s go see the factory now.”
Although extremely complimentary of the Aquafil managers and employees in Cartersville for the company’s eventual success, Mr. Rossi unexpectedly first thanked an unnamed immigration officer for letting him and two colleagues into the country to start the business.
“You know what they call foreign visitors and guest workers…aliens,” he said jokingly. “I didn’t look like a little green man, but I did start working in the warehouse and I want to thank him for making this possible.”
He then added to a round of applause that last year he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
When the company first set up shop, he explained it faced a long list of well-established competitors including Brand Standing Furnishing (BSF), E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Montsanto Co., Honeywell International Inc. among others.
“It takes a good dose of recklessness,” Mr. Rossi added to take on these giants, but the company developed relationships with current clients including Northwest Hospitality Carpets Inc. in Dalton and Mountville Mills Inc. in LaGrange whose CEOs spoke at the celebration.
Mr. Rossi’s boss, Giulio Bonazzi, the CEO of Aquafil Group, stressed the entrepreneurial challenges that the company faced by tracing its origin in 1956 with six workers in a small garage into the global company of today that has successfully carved out a business despite the competition from large, well-established competitors.
During an interview with Global Atlanta following the ceremony, Mr. Bonazzi said that formative experiences for him included a year working in Calhoun for Horizon Carpets and his association with Ray Anderson, the late founder and chairman of Interface Inc., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of modular carpet for commercial and residential applications.
Mr. Anderson’s commitment to developing a progressive commitment to industrial ecology and sustainability mirrored his own. Mr. Bonazzi is famous for saying, “When I see a landfill, I see a goldmine.”
[pullquote]”When I see a landfill, I see a goldmine,” says Giulio Bonazzi, CEO of Aquafil Group.[/pullquote]
That vision eventually evolved into the ECONYL Regeneration System, which took years of trial and error to develop as well as a lot of persistence where other companies failed to succeed in being able to transform the worn out carpeting into a fully revived product as is widely recognized.
It also has enabled the company to branch out into new products such as sportswear and swimwear. Although these products are more expensive to make out of the regenerated materials, they have an environmental sustainability story with which to sell them that increasingly meets the desires of consumers.
As a manufacturer of synthetic carpet and textile, Mr. Bonazzi was motivated by environmental concerns because he knew that his business was dependent on oils and their derivatives that deplete natural resources.
He also moved the group’s headquarters to Arco di Trento in northeast Italy that has some of the most stringent environmental controls in Europe further prompting him to take on an aggressive sustainable strategy..
With entrepreneurship experiences of their own, the guest CEO speakers recounted the early days of their family-owned enterprises that now do business with Aquafil.
Randy Coker, CEO of Northwest Hospitality Carpets Inc., said that his father, Ed Coker, grew tired of working for a minimum wage at 50-60 hours a week and decided to open his own company manufacturing knobby fringe material. The family-owned company now sells designer hospitality carpet to upscale resorts and hotels throughout the U.S.
He recalled when Mr. Rossi first sold his company three containers of yarn from Italy in the late 1990s. It was obvious, he said, that selling in the U.S. was a new experience for Mr. Rossi and his two companions judging from their difficulty with English. But he was quick to add that his company has remained a loyal customer ever since those three containers arrived and that their companies have grown together.
David Hart, CEO of Mountville Mills Inc., had an equally compelling entrepreneurial story about his family-owned company that sells commercial floor mats and many other products with operations in Belgium, Canada and China besides its two facilities in La Grange. It too has been a loyal customer of Aquafil’s as Mountville Mills has grown globally.
Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, congratulated Aquafil on being “good stewards of the environment” and for demonstrating the environmentally sustainable practices can be “good for business.”
Describing his office as being on the “frontline of business and economic development,” he reviewed Georgia initiatives to maximize the use of renewable fuels.
The celebration concluded with several Italian flourishes. Ryan Brideau, a second year voice student at the Juilliard School in New York and a native of Cartersville, sang two Italian opera pieces.
Before leaving the guests were served lunch including bruschetta as an appetizer, followed by a caprese salad and a main course of butternut squash ravioli and penes with Italian sausage. As a finale, they were offered a dessert of chocolate hazelnut crunch.
For more information about Aquafil USA, contact Abby Dayton, brand communications coordinator, by calling 678-605-8168 or send an email to abby.dayton@aquafil.com
For a previous Global Atlanta article on Aquafil USA, click here. For an article on the remarks of the Italian ambassador to the U.S., Claudio Bisogniero, click here.
