Construction of new food and beverage plants continues to see a strong upward trend despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Processors are turning to automation to fill jobs where people are unavailable.

For locating facilities, operators look for geographical areas with an employable workforce and adequate logistics.

FSMA’s Intentional Adulteration rule is still a work in progress for some sites, meanwhile processors and retailers are eyeing indoor grow facilities.

This year’s plant construction survey hit the highest number of projects ever recorded.

If you’ve ever played “Whac-A-Mole” on the boardwalk or at an arcade, you can get a sense of the frustration that both food and beverage processors and architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) firms are feeling in today’s economy—fix one problem, another pops up.

Construction in the food and beverage industry is continuing, but there’s a bit of “wait and see” happening due to the presidential election occurring later this year.

Trucor Refined is a PVC-free flooring collection that combines rigid core and laminate for those who prefer an environmentally friendly, waterproof, durable and luxurious floor that is easy to install and maintain.

Retailers have a new tower display for Innovius SPC and new step displays for Encompass and Oterra laminate collections. 

The purchased assets include the Naturally Aged Flooring, Harris, Kraus and Heritage Mill brands in North America, as well as related inventory and associated domain names and websites.

 Torlys Smart Laminates offer the beauty of wood, with the durability of laminate.

In this role, Johnson will lead hard surface product innovation, marketing, and strategic direction.

Torlys Grand View Smart Laminate collection offers extra-wide and extra-long planks, with Surface Flood Protection thanks to Aqua Protect and pressed bevel edges.

Välinge announced that Changzhou Chenglu New Materials CO., Ltd. became a 5G Dry licensee and launched a collection of laminate products with increased waterproofness using the technology.

Mohawk is refreshing its popular RevWood line to represent recent product enhancements and evolving market demands. 

Jufeng selected i4F’s drop-lock technologies for faster and easier installation as well as AquaProtect, i4F’s highly advanced water-resistant process technology for laminate as part of its strategy to launch its laminate flooring as a mass market offering.

AHF Products, a manufacturer of hard surface flooring in the U.S., announced the launch of new product lines by Bruce, Armstrong Flooring, Hartco and Crossville, the company's brands.

The National Floorcovering Alliance's 26 vendor partners came armed with new products and promotion ideas aimed to boost sales for flooring retailers in 2024. 

Karastan's updates include its BelleLuxe Waterproof and LuxeCraft hard surface lines, as well as new soft surface options across the brand’s wool, SmartStrand and XTRA collections.

Mohawk Builder + Multifamily is building a more sustainable world with a diverse portfolio of carpet, laminated wood and resilient flooring all made in the USA to help customers create greener communities.

For the third year, the Mohawk Design Summit brought together retailers and designers to curate the 2025 and 2026 products for the Mohawk, Karastan and Godfrey Hirst brands. 

This initiative marks the first major revision of the standard since its last update in 2019, emphasizing NALFA's commitment to ensuring the highest quality standards within the industry. 

Certainly there are exceptions to the rule and we had an opportunity to visit one of those when we were in Philadelphia recently to attend the Greenbuild expo and conference.

In conjunction with the 2014 InterCork II campaign being launched by APCOR, the international trade body representing cork producers from Portugal, I would like to elaborate further on their efforts while extolling the many virtues cork flooring has to offer the independent retailer.

Oils and waxes have been used to protect natural materials from the effects of the environment—light, water, cats, etc.—in buildings and building materials for as long as such things have existed.

The World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) announced the winners of the Howard Olansky Affiliate of the Year Awards. 

Unlike the residential market, which is essentially single family housing and most often dealing with remodels, the commercial sector is a vast sea of segments, ranging anywhere from corporate offices to healthcare to education to hospitality to retail to government/military and technically anything else not handled by the typical neighborhood retailer.

Selecting the right flooring for a space not only adds to its look, but experience and overall feel. That is one of the main points designers said when Floor Trends polled them to find out just what they’re looking for when designing for commercial spaces.

Rob Menefee wants to continue to grow his business. Considering he already has three locations and $12-plus million in annual sales, that is no small task. 

Connecting with customers is vital to the success of any business. Flooring contractors are no different, but which customers and how? Who do you spend time with—architects, designers, end users or general contractors? What about product manufacturers?

Ted Gregerson found true love as a young man. Working for a Carpet One store in his hometown right out of high school he discovered flooring was in his blood. His love for people, integrity and helping customers create beautiful homes inspired him to his core.

According to a 2014 study by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing, the home improvement industry is expected to see double-digit growth through the end of the year.

While wood floors are built to withstand the abuse of foot traffic and furniture, humidity is an invisible enemy that can quickly wreak havoc on even the best surfaces.

Almost 30 years ago, Janice Clifton was working as a public accountant and helping a local cash-and-carry flooring retailer exit the business. 

What happens when a designer redesigns his own home? Floor Trends was invited to the New York City apartment of nationally known interior design Vern Yip to find out.

Distribution remains a vital part of the floor covering trade, but distributors are facing increased competition from e-commerce sites and retailers who go direct to manufacturers to buy their flooring products.

Choosing and installing the correct commercial floor covering can be a detailed and complicated process that necessarily looks beyond aesthetic preference and examines every aspect of the installation, beginning with the substrate and its condition and ending with the required maintenance regimen once the flooring is installed.

Dave Munson learned the flooring business from the ground up working in his parents’ two stores in North Dakota.

Dreams are what homes are made of.

A Google search for “laminate retailers” will retrieve over a million results in about 30 seconds.

From the beginning, laminate products have had a reputation of having a “hollow” sound when walked upon.

One of the best moves Floors and More ever made was a year into the company’s life when its founders Dan and Brenda Billingsley decided to take their tile store from a city address to its current location on Interstate 30, a direct link between Dallas and Memphis, Tenn.

Today more than ever it is vital for retailers to create a pleasant and unique shopping experience for consumers.

From the earliest days, Ruggieri Brothers of Cranston, R.I., was a hometown, family business.

These introductory case studies illustrate how EnviroQuiet LVT has been able to enhance the living and working conditions for a variety of populations.  

Interface introduces project-specific embodied carbon metrics on all floor plans created by its Design Studio. This industry-first initiative allows customers to easily understand the carbon impact of their flooring choices, comparing Interface products to industry averages.

In a move to reshape flooring distribution, Transom Capital Group has announced the formation of Artivo Surfaces, a new parent company that brings together distributors Virginia Tile and Galleher. This strategic consolidation creates a multi-regional powerhouse with 48 locations across 18 states, offering an extensive range of flooring solutions from coast to coast. 

Victoria CEO Phillipe Harners reported that while the flooring sector is experiencing the most severe and longest decline in demand in the last 30 years, the company is optimizing productivity and reducing operational costs while maintaining production capacity to prepare for future demand. 

Nineteen flooring manufacturers, including AHF Products, showcased a curated selection of products and met with architects and designers from the greater New York City area. 

Toronto-based Metropolitan Floors is challenging misleading acoustic rating requirements in condominiums, warning that increasingly demanding Impact Insulation Class (IIC) standards are often unattainable in real-world conditions. The company aims to educate industry stakeholders about the gap between laboratory test results and actual building performance.