Curecrete Distribution is the original concrete densification company. Its award-winning flagship products, Ashford Formula™ and RetroPlate®, were the first to market of their kind and continue to lead the way as component parts of a comprehensive system of products that keep concrete floors looking and performing their best for a lifetime.
As the company responsible for pioneering innovative technology that makes concrete harder, denser, and more durable for the long haul, Curecrete continues to find ways to improve on an already established offering by integrating better sustainability, aesthetics, and function.
“We’re never happy with what we have or have had, even though Ashford Formula celebrates its 75th anniversary this year and RetroPlate its 25th,” says Vice President of Sales, Vernon Talbot.
No resting on laurels
Noting that it would be easy to “just live off of that,” in terms of reputation, as these densification and polishing systems are permanent solutions designed to stand the test of time against foot traffic and wear and seal the concrete against contaminants for easier maintenance and an impeccable finish, the company instead continues to improve its offerings through careful and timely innovations.
One such example is the KickStart product line, a unique liquid formulation that can be used with both the Ashford Formula and RetroPlate to achieve accelerated and enhanced clarity on steel-troweled concrete with fewer grinding and polishing steps, saving time and money without compromising finish and performance.
As CEO and President Scott Liggett notes, “Now, instead of doing seven to nine grinding steps on the floor, tying up all those assets and running through all the diamonds that you’d need, we’ve cut that process to turn out a better, longer lasting floor in three to four steps.” This resource-saving, in terms of labor, materials, and equipment, represents significant savings for contractors at a time when labor is scarce and dear.
Problem-solving
Beyond concrete polishing and densification, Curecrete continues to solve the problems of its customers and the broader industry by taking the time to fully understand them. One such problem is the increasing predominance of Portland Limestone Cement (PLC), also known as Type 1L, which is more sustainable but at the expense of concrete quality.
“It’s a softer concrete, harder to finish with longer set times, and we’ve actually come up with a product that addresses pretty much all of those issues and is turning out a great floor,” says Liggett.
Recently, a building owner was grappling with a floor that wouldn’t harden despite being treated a number of times. The options before them were costly and time-consuming—that is, until Curecrete came on board.
Vice President of Project Engineering and Support, Roy Bowman, offers some insight into the alternatives: “You would have to grind the floor off and put an overlay on it, or you’d have to rip the concrete out and put new concrete. We’ve recently overcome some of that with some new products.”
Typically, untreated concrete ranges from four and a half to five and a half on the Mohs hardness scale. In this case, the facility’s floor was scratching at a two and a half which wouldn’t stand up to the daily activities of the facility.
Once treated, Curecrete hardened the floors to the stage where they were only “scratching with a number eight and number nine pencil, so that’s a seven and a half to an eight and a half in hardness, where we were happy to get six and a half to seven and a half in the past,” says Bowman. He was pleased to exceed expectations but prouder that “we didn’t put 180,000 square feet of concrete or slurry into a landfill.”
Concrete solutions
With results of this magnitude, it should be no surprise that by year-end, Curecrete’s Ashford Formula will have been applied to over six billion square feet of concrete, an achievement that presents a unique opportunity for the company: maintenance.
“We’re creating solutions that now enhance how we maintain those floors as well as the sustainability of the products themselves,” says Talbot, explaining the performance of products like CreteClean Plus with Scar Guard, which extends the longevity, performance, and aesthetic appearance of concrete floors so they last a lifetime.
This is paramount to the mission and vision of the company. “The floor is the foundation of any business, so keeping that floor functional and looking good and lasting a lifetime is where the sustainability aspect comes in,” says Director of Marketing, Garrett Soong.
Not only is the rinse-free formula designed to enhance floors as they are being cleaned, but it can also be utilized without any special equipment and is composed of biodegradable and non-harmful ingredients, manufactured in an Eco Logo-certified facility.
In developing this sustainable product that complements its comprehensive suite of existing products (which includes chemical strippers, clarity enhancers, topical floor protection products, and concrete dyes), Curecrete again sets the standard for quality. “Turns out it’s also an excellent hard surface cleaner for everything else: tile and linoleum and just about anything you can think of except untreated wood. It does an amazing job of cleaning,” says Liggett.
Embracing change
While product innovation is at the heart of Curecrete’s success, the company’s ability to embrace change and face challenges with agility elevates the service and performance of its people and products. Liggett notes, “We embrace change for sure, but only the change that’s best for the industry, the environment, and the customer.”
Driving this approach are the company’s core values which include putting people first, doing the right thing, seeking excellence always, being the solution, and finishing it when the time comes.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the company had to reevaluate how to put its people first, especially given its hands-on approach to ensuring that the use, application, and maintenance of its products was seamless. In true Curecrete fashion, the team identified the challenge as an opportunity and used it as a catalyst for change and improvement, rethinking and restructuring how business could be delivered without compromising employee safety or the quality of service and support its customers had come to expect.
One solution was Curecrete University, an online learning platform that has been established to propel the company’s growth. As Soong notes, “For us, being a small company, having a tool like that is helpful because it helps to validate who we are,” especially as the University continues to extend its reach around the globe.
Curecrete has also invested in a 7,000-square-foot facility in Springville, Utah, which will serve as a state-of-the-art training center where, as Bowman explains, “We’ll try to develop [employees] as part of the Curecrete family. We don’t want to just teach them how to apply our product; we want to teach them to be successful. If they’re successful, we’re successful.”
Investing in success
As a family-owned operation with a global reach, Curecrete is a small team that is making an enormous impact and is taking action to ensure its value proposition can be scaled along with its global reach and demand.
To facilitate this, Curecrete will soon launch a new eCommerce platform that will further improve the customer experience. This is in addition to recent investments in its capacity including a new bottle-filling line, label/bottle printer, mixing tanks, and international production to support its customers more sustainably around the world.
“Because the sustainability is so important to us, we’ve begun international manufacturing in different areas so that we can meet those needs and not create an environmental issue while getting these sustainable products to these locations,” explains Talbot.
With this level of investment in the company’s capacity, in addition to its tireless commitment to product and process innovation and sustainability, Curecrete’s future stands to outlast the very floors its products treat. “We treat new floors, and those floors last a lifetime. We can give new life to floors, so those floors last a lifetime. And then we maintain those floors, so they last a lifetime,” says Soong.
It’s striking how this deeply rooted commitment to enhancing spaces and enriching lives with Curecrete‘s densification, polishing, and maintenance solutions permeates every part of this extremely focused company.
