Voice of the industry

Given that this was a special anniversary, the association had organised a celebration in the GOP-Kaiserpalais in Bad Oeynhausen. “The EPLF is a strong international player thanks to its active members and it has made a notable contribution to the positive development of laminate flooring as a product on the world market”, emphasized Ludger Schindler, the association chairman. Indeed, in the last few decades there has hardly been a floor covering that has taken over such a large market share worldwide in such a short time as laminate flooring. After the Swedish company Perstorp presented the first laminate flooring in 1977, followed by the launch of the first high-pressure laminate (HPL) with chipboard in 1980, the new flooring developed into one of the leading floor coverings by the 1990s. Consequently, it was high time for the growing European branch to form its own lobby. This happened in 1994: eight well-known European producers founded the European Producers of Laminate Flooring (EPLF) Association, whose headquarter is now in Bielefeld. The founder members at that time were: Alsapan (France), Hamberger (Germany), Kaindl (Austria), Meister Leisten (Germany, now: Meister-Werke Schulte), Dekaply (Belgium), Unilin (Belgium), Vesterby (Denmark) and Witex (Germany, now: Windmöller Flooring). Nowadays the members of EPLF are made up of 21 European manufacturers from eleven countries as well as 33 suppliers and service providers. The association’s manufacturers currently supply around 55 per cent of the global market and over 80 per cent of the laminate flooring offered on the European market.

Furthermore, since its foundation, the association has seen itself as the voice of the industry in all matters relating to European and international standardisation. Taking the lead here is the EPLF’s technology working group (AKT). Thanks to the pioneering work of the association, there has been a European norm for laminate flooring (EN 13329) since 2000 and after eight years of cooperation with the ISO body, the ISO 14486 was published in 2012. Since then the industry has had a worldwide valid standard to evaluate and test laminate flooring. The EPLF was also mainly responsible for the “technical specifications” CEN/TS 16354…