Compac Marble and Quartz – Marmol Compac

Who is who in the engineered stone business? Compac Quartz, Compac Marble and Marmol Compac are all sales brands of one of the biggest engineered stone manufacturers in Europe. 

Commonly known as Marmol Compac due to its origin, as this group began manufacturing engineered stone in 1975. Its engineered marble plant is located in Spain, just South of Valencia. In truth it still is the main headquarters for all operations, although, most of the production output and invoicing is generated in their Portuguese plant called Silicalia. Here they have a engineered quartz manufacturing plant with 4 production lines running and a fifth one bought (running market information). Silicalia is located in the central part of Portugal far from any major city, as also is known that they had several benefits from the local town to install their factory in their county. In terms of industrial expansion, they are planning to install an engineered marble plant near Baza, close to Almeria. Although due to market expectations they’ve only settled for a nice big sign next to a major motorway.

Silicalia was installed in Portugal due to contract limitations. Breton, the Italian manufacturers of the machinery and owner of the technology and  know-how, set up an exclusive agreement with Cosentino Group ( Silestone brand), giving them a manufacturing and know-how exclusive rights, this exclusivity is indexed to the quantity of quartz production lines bought, being two years for each one. Therefore, Cosentino started production in the 90s, and currently they have 11 production lines installed, so that’s 22 years of exclusive manufacturing. Nevertheless, Quarella also has an engineered quartz plant in the Northern part of Spain called Prestige, they’ve been excluded of such agreement, as they are the oldest engineered quartz plant operating in Spain.

So Marmol Compac, the original name, was given due to the engineered marble technology they bought a few decades ago. By accumulating engineered marble and engineered quartz in their core business, the name Marmol Compac was changed to Compac Marble and Quartz. Engineered stone companies producing both engineered marble and engineered quartz in Europe are few, being Marmol Compac in the top 5 positions regarding production capacity.

Compac Marble and Quartz is a family managed enterprise, that is based on a warehousing sales strategy, as most of their sales originate in Spain. They’ve set up an owned warehousing distribution units all over Spain, and have expanded this strategy to the United Kingdom. Although I did hear recently that the operation in the United Kingdom was in great difficulty and in the eminence of closing the warehousing units in this market. They also have their own US distribution system set up.

Compac Marble and Quartz have been one of the most innovative companies in this sector, they have a very good R&D team. They’ve created some very unique colours, one of my favorites is Silver, a grey colour with very light sparkles, in my opinion, it’s a great result of extensive R&D. I have a photo of it, although just looking at it you will not see how profound the colour is.

They’ve also have evolved in white colours and have currently on of the best pure white colours in the market. In marketing they’ve followed Silestones foot steps and have used VIPs in promoting their products, although still quite behind Silestone, but I’d give them a 2^nd place worldwide in marketing.

Compac Marble and Quartz has also innovated in distribution, they’ve opened two outlet type warehouses for second choice slabs, discontinued colours and other excess stock. The prices are really good, however you are limited to the existing stock.