Välinge licensee and sister company, Bjelin, plans to build a €200 million [U.S. $238.25 million] factory in Ogulin, Croatia, for wood flooring based on Woodura technology. Bjelin is owned by Välinge majority shareholder, Pervanovo Invest AB.
“I am very pleased that after 10 years of hard and very costly development work we are finally ready to scale up our powder-based production considerably in order to introduce a new wood flooring generation that is more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly — in the same way as the three-layer parquet was when it was invented and introduced in 1945 by the Swedish companies Kährs and Tarkett,” said Darko Pervan, CEO, Pervanovo Invest AB. “The positive market response gives us the confidence to make a major investment in production in Croatia where we have high-quality oak material and skilled workers.”
The new factory is located on a 330,000 square meters [3.5 million-sq.-ft.] plot of land and comprises 100,000 square meters [approximately 1 million sq. ft] buildings.
The Woodura surface technology is based on fusing a thin sheet of wood onto a wood fiber core through a powder mix layer to create a reinforced wood surface. Woodura technology was developed by Välinge during 2009–2010, and the company piloted flooring production using the patented technology at its Viken, Sweden, headquarters in 2015. An additional state-of-the-art factory was added at the same location in 2018 taking annual capacity beyond 5 million square meters. Sister company, Bjelin AB, is the main distributor of the floors in Scandinavia, with several other distributors in Europe. Välinge Flooring—an own-brand flooring collection featuring Woodura—was launched in the United States in 2020 and Asia in 2021. Bjelin’s new factory in Croatia will increase production and availability of the next-gen real wood floor and also allow Välinge to help their partners and licensees to develop their own Woodura-based products.
“We are glad to see Bjelin taking this step into large-scale manufacturing of floors with the Woodura technology under a license from Välinge,” said Niclas Håkansson, CEO Välinge. “Several factors prove that the concept is ready for this massive expansion — our production in Viken; market feedback from our sales, and both Bjelin and our partners’ success with the products so far. When the Bjelin factory is completed it will free capacity at Välinge to offer our flooring partners the opportunity to introduce their own Woodura-based products to the market. They will have the possibility of entering this new and innovative flooring category without making production investments from day one. Then, when they decide to invest in their own capacity, we will be there to support them with factory specifications and start-up training—it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.”
For more information, visit https://www.valinge.se/
