Kargro: The Casings Kings

With an inventory varying between 120,000 and 180,000 tyres, Dutch casing dealer Kargro can justifiably claim a position among the world's leading suppliers of casings to the retread market. However, in the forty years since the company's entry into the casing market in 1968 the Montfoort based company has developed into much more than this as Director Jan Driessen explains;

"The basis for the Kargro Group is as a full service operation. We collect and inspect casings and then we take care of the scrap, whether it be supplying casings or used tyres, retreading, disposing of the tyres via third party recycling companies or shredding and granulating them in our own plant. Indeed in the Benelux countries our area of operation covers everything after the first life of the tyre".

It is however, casing supply, which is the core of the Kargro Group's business today. The company developed its expertise in the casing market at a time when people began to realise that tyre retreaders had a need for casings leading to the creation of casing supply companies for local retreaders. As this developed the surplus created in Europe led to overseas exports and the development of international casing business. In the early years, however, the focus was on building up and developing European customers and these, says Driessen, are the basis of the success of the Kargro Group today.

Kargro operates two casing companies - Kargro, which specialises in truck tyres and Lintire, which handles 2.5 million car tyres per annum. The car tyre business operates by placing some four hundred 20 foot containers on tyre dealer properties throughout Benelux with the collected tyres being sold to retreaders or otherwise recycled. According to Driessen only about 25% of the input at Lintire is actually saleable due to there being a lack of market for the sizes collected. Interestingly though, the company reports a growth in sales of car tyre casings, primarily to Eastern Europe.

In addition to its casing business, the Group owns granulate and rubber powder manufacturer Rumal (based in Weert) as well as two retreading companies - Banden Plan Europa in Holland and Tyre Plan Europe in Belgium.

The company first began retreading in 1988 when the company opened a Bandag plant at Montfoort. This, says Director Ko van der Heijden, who is in charge of the Group's retreading interests, allowed the Group to get a more detailed view of the market, enabling Kargro to get a greater understanding of the casing sector and hence allowing it to improve its service to retreaders throughout the world. Today the Kargro Group still operates Bandag franchises in Benelux as well as manufacturing Bridgestone Qualitread retreads and UBO branded mould cure retreads using Ellerbrock hot cure materials.

However van der Heijden is keen to point out that the company only retreads in its local market in Belgium and Holland. Says van der Heijden; "Our own retread plants are actually treated as just another customer of Kargro. Indeed this business only makes up about 7% of Kargro's turnover so customers can rest assured that we don't keep the best casings for ourselves. Indeed, we consider it to be vital that we are seen as being absolutely independent so that we are able to work with everyone. Of key importance is that we are not tied directly to the new tyre brands. We do not sell new tyres but we work closely with Michelin, Bridgestone and others within the retread and casing supply sector".

Kargro supplies casings to nearly 50 countries throughout the world. The company's main markets are in Europe. However, the company emphasises the need to spread sales and not to be too focused on one area. This, says Jan Driessen, is particularly important under the current climate with Brazil closed, the US market self-supporting and the South African market suffering from a currency crisis.

Jan Driessen emphasises that Kargro is continuing to invest heavily in its casing business. Recent investments include special trailers for collecting that can be loaded by one man, dual-level trailers and fork lift trucks that are being changed over from diesel to LPG to reduce noise and emissions. The company is also very active within the Dutch Association VACO and within BIPAVER where Jan Driessen is a Vice President. "The role of BIPAVER is extremely important for the future of the independent retreader", he says. The Kargro Group is not only VACO approved but is also certified by Recytyre, Aliapur and TUV in addition to holding ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Issue 2009/1