Cultured Marble : Is there any way out for the Breton engineered marble plants?

Engineered marble or cultured marble as many call it, has been living a severe crisis since 2008. In truth while the engineered quartz production plants are almost back to normal production, the engineered marble or cultured marble plants are still in a deep crisis. When I refer to engineered marble, cultured marble, I'm referring to polyester resin based materials which use block technology.
In fact, their are several issues regarding this product, basically they are at a strategic point trying to re-think production to make the whole investment viable. Some of the European companies which use Breton Block technology are in deep crisis and fighting for survival. In the last few years Breton has sold more slab production lines than block production lines, nevertheless the block production lines produced in the last few years  most of them were installed in China.
In Europe the main cultured marble producers that use Breton technology are:

• Quarella - Italy

Quarella is the biggest composite stone producer in the world, as they claim, and I figure they might have reason to make such claim. They have a few block production plants and have suffered seriously with the crisis. They export to almost every country in the World, and have been practicing very aggressive pricing in Asia.
They have created a product which uses the block technology, it's an evolution series which has given the product a greater superficial hardness. The Evo series was launched last year, and is a strategic solution for the decrease in market share in the cultured marble sector.

• Rover - Italy

Rover is a Quarella group company, they mainly produce engineered marble products, however they do offer a limited number of colours in engineered quartz, they call it the Borea line. 

• Marmol Compac - Spain

Marmol Compac or Compac Mable, as they had to re do the naming of their whole brand, they used to call themselves Marmol Compac, although with the engineered quartz plant project, it made it difficult to market both products using the same brand. So they have spent the last few years defining their brand strategy and exchanging/renewing all marketing material they had.
Anyway, Marmol Compac has bought land near Baza, southern part of Spain to install a new Breton Block plant. Nevertheless the current crisis on engineered marble has slowed or literaly stopped that project.
Marmol Compac has survived thanks to the engineered quartz plant, if it was not for that I believe that they would no longer exist, or maintain a major producer status. They have shifted most of their excess personnel from Spain (engineered marble plant) to Portugal (engineered quartz plant). They've dedicated most of their resources in the last few years promoting and developing engineered quartz products, leaving the engineered marble in stand-by waiting for better days to return. In a lunch meeting a few weeks ago, a friend told me that they have recongnized that the engineered marble has been left behind, and 2011 they'll be dedicating more resources to the engineered marble products. So I guess we may have some new engineered marble products in 2011.

• Santa Margherita -  Italy

Santa Margherita, is one of the most technically evolved engineered stone plants in the World, it's Breton major partner. Besides being present in both engineered marble and engineered quartz markets, they seem to have survived with less sacrifice the engineered marble crisis. I guess due to the fact that they are smaller than the direct competition, and due to their well established marketing network.

• Agglonord - Italy

Agglonord mainly produces engineered marble blocks, they outsource all the other parts of the business. They use the old Breton technology, and have some quality problems due to that. The founder of Agglonord was Mr. Quarella, the same founder of Quarella. A few years ago he sold Quarella and established himself again in the sector, although besides being one of the brightest minds in the industry, Agglonord still lack some quality standards, mostly due to the fact that the old Breton technology is less effective when producing fine grain products. Personally I admire Mr. Quarella, unfortunately I never met him, but had a chance to meet his daughter, to whom I expressed this feeling. It's important to have recognition for great accomplishments and I think that their are a few people who really did something for this Industry in the past. We should not forget that engineered stone today has a stronger brand than it did 30 years ago, marketing these products back then was a very difficult thing, they had to deal with a mentality that had established natural products as a natural stone solution.

• RMC- Portugal

I was sad to know that RMC is going through a tough stage. They are the smallest in production, although they've created a few products which have marked positively their effort. I've received information that they are going through a deep crisis in sales. I hope they can re-create their whole production process, the European Industry needs as many producers as possible.

Why is cultured stone loosing market share?

• Chinese competition

In Asia in the last 10 years many engineered marble plants have been set up, few with Breton technology and many with Chinese technology. The Chinese market is big, but we continue to see many Chinese engineered marble and engineered quartz arriving to the European market. The quality may not be as good, but in general they are capable of selling similar products in Europe at a lower price. So European companies are reaching out to creativity to block Chinese competition in the European market, although I doubt they'll succeed, the Chinese have proven in several other markets that they can overcome barriers.

• New products with competitive price

While engineered stone in general are increasing in price, due to raw material costs which have been sky rocket in the last 6/7 months, other products like porcelain tiles are arriving to the European market at very low prices. The market today has many options, and most of them tend to be competitive in pricing. 

• Similar textures with more resistance

More substitute products are being used, the washroom vanity top industry is being invaded by whole ceramic piece units, vanity and wash basin in one piece. The tile industry, has been overcome by ceramic, porcelain, natural granite, and other products. Even engineered quartz is sometimes looked at as an alternative to engineered marble, as it is similar in texture, but much more resitant.

• Colour trend

The colour trend which has occured constantly has also done some damage to the engineered marble, dark colours, minimal designs, etc, etc... have come and gone in the last few years. We all know that, engineered marble has great difficulty in producing acceptable products in dark colours. The difficulty to manufacture them is equal to its application problems, flooring is out of the question, unless you have a maintenance crew constantly working. So basically, the light colour has been the main stream of textures.
Most companies have tried make a pure white colour, which you can easily find in Chinese producers, but have little traffic resistance. The solution for this type of products would be hardening the surface and making more resistant material, I guess maybe Quarella is on the right track, the rest should just follow and innovate on the way.