By Ken Ryan
When MP Global Products first introduced QuietWalk in 1999 as an acoustical underlayment for floating laminate and engineered wood floors, competing companies were not impressed. “They laughed at it and said how ugly it was,” recalled Jack Boesch, director of marketing for the Norfolk, Neb.-based manufacturer. “They didn’t see any perceived value to it.”
Over time, the mocking subsided. Despite its lack of aesthetic appeal, QuietWalk became a hit for MP Global Products. The product comes with a moisture management system that protects floors from damage, a benefit that resonated with customers.
A brand was born, and MP Global Products has capitalized on that success.
“We’ve been a distributor of theirs for seven years, and QuietWalk is one of those dream products that everyone wants and loves to sell,” said Craig Folven, vice president of sales and marketing at Herregen Distributors, Eagan, Minn. “The product does what it says it will do and there are no callbacks or problems. It’s their core product and our core product.”
Boesch said the percentage of satisfaction with QuietWalk is nearly 100%; in other words there are precious few claims. QuietWalk is available in 100-square-foot, do-it-yourself size rolls and 360-square-foot contractor size rolls.
A decade after its introduction, QuietWalk continues to grow and prosper. Clearly, no one is laughing at the product any longer. Instead, companies from China and elsewhere are trying to get into MP Global’s market with products similar to QuietWalk, Boesch said. They may be similar, but they are not QuietWalk.
Growing the portfolioQuietWalk has been MP Global’s most successful product since being launched, but during the last 10 years the company has introduced other products that are gaining volume. They include:
• Insulayment – an acoustical fiber pad designed specifically for fasten-down, hard surface flooring such as nail-down or glue-down engineered wood;
• QuietWarmth – a patented FiberThermic heating element that is added to the pad to create a radiant heat underlayment that is safe for laminate, wood and ceramic flooring;
• FiberBacker – designed as an acoustical product for beneath tile; this product also suppresses the transfer of lateral cracks from the underlying subfloor to the tile floor above. For use under wood and ceramic products, FiberBacker is made with a minimum 95% recycled content. For LEED-certified projects, FiberBacker offers insulation, sound absorption and crack suppression while also inhibiting mold and dust mites.
MP Global also carries polyethylene foam underlayments, with DuoFoam the most popular brand. “It’s a more basic underlayment and is an economic alternative to our QuietWalk upgrade,” Boesch said.
Green before its timeFounded in 1997 as Midwest Padding, the company first developed carpet cushion and padding products for the bedding industry. Back then, MP’s products contained primarily recycled fibers from the carpet and textile industries. “We were green before green was popular, and we didn’t have to reinvent ourselves to be green,” Boesch said, alluding to other flooring companies that have recently jumped on the eco bandwagon.
MP’s patented high-heat manufacturing process kills any potential bacteria or fungus. It also uses an EPA-registered antimicrobial additive to inhibit mold or mildew growth, thereby producing a very clean and healthy product.
Boesch said most of the company’s products are certified by Scientific Certification System (SCS) for their high content of recycled content. The same products also earned the SCS Indoor Advantage Gold certification, which requires the highest level of indoor performance for clean air.
Besides the recycled content, MP Global’s fiber underlayments exceed the standards set for hospitals and schools. The added benefit of not using chemical-based components is that the products do not emit a chemical, gaseous odor.
“A lot of companies are trying to invent their own green stories,” Boesch said. “We never had to. We’ve been manufacturing products from recycled materials from day one. We didn’t choose to make our products with recycled materials just because it was trendy; we chose to do it because it was the right thing to do.”
MP Global’s products are not just green; they are reliable as well. As Boesch pointed out, “In the past 10 years we’ve produced and sold almost 1 billion square feet of fiber underlayment products with a 99.998% rate of success.”
Holding its ownThe prolonged downturn in housing coupled with the economic recession has not adversely affected MP Global as it has others because most of its business is in remodeling and not new construction. “Overall, some of our customers may be off 10% to 18% individually, but we are in line with where we were a year ago and probably ahead of where we were two years ago,” Boesch said.
MP Global has also held firm on pricing. In the midst of higher raw material costs throughout the industry, the company made a stand to holding the line on pricing— setting them at pre-2007 levels— for the majority of its products. One reason it can do this is because many of its offerings, including QuietWalk, are made primarily from recycled textile fibers, not petroleum. “The good news here is that the costs of our raw materials are not nearly as volatile as most,” Boesch said.
The company has also weathered the economic storm by diversifying its customers, quickly filling in gaps when wholesalers merge or go out of business. “That’s helped us stay ahead of the game,” Boesch said.
MP Global has shared a solid partnership with Herregan Distributors during the good times and tough times. It is a relationship built to last, Folven said. “[MP Global] is a company that tries to cover every segment of the business, from mid-range to premium, and they do it well. We buy quite a few products from them because it fills so many of our needs. We have a great relationship with them.”
