2019 Top Companies Success Stories: ICA Group

Wood coatings have always been a cornerstone of the  ICA product range. That is what started it all, back in 1971. Today ICA brand products are a point of reference among coatings for furniture and wooden flooring and are a proof of the company’s great attention to trends.

“For us, service and quality are a disease from which we do not want to heal! We check the incoming materials and our production through something like 300 daily tests, each of which consists of a dozen specific tests. We produce the pigments we use internally and we have something like 2,300 coatings available in all product lines, exceeding 44,000 formulas and 60,000 customized colors. Absolute perfection in the world of color does not exist but we can get very close,” said Emanuele Gelosa, marketing & sales director, ICA Group.

What is the state of the coatings industry?

Gelosa: “We have chosen to serve the market and our customers in an increasingly structured way. We no longer sell a coating product but a solution. We work alongside the customer to give him a finish that makes his product more competitive. Not only that: we field many transversal topics that allow us to relate to the world of interior design and architects. The analysis of trends is a fundamental part of our work. In the furniture industry the super natural and extra-opaque wooden parts require always more high performance finishes. Thus was born our S-MATT product line which allowed us to respond to the dominant trend in the design furniture of “super opaque” surfaces, with a “soft touch” and above all self-repairing effect. We have developed these coatings giving performances that were a utopia until a couple of years ago. A challenge that does not stop for us: we are committed to making these finishing technologies even more “green”, a commitment to sustainability that is an absolute imperative for us.”


How is your company facing key trends in the industry?

Lorenzo Paniccia, R&D technical manager: “In the last decade we have gained the awareness of being technologically at the forefront in the development and production of water-based products with low environmental impact, but this was no longer enough for us. We wanted to go beyond, giving a further twist to this technology from the point of view of sustainability, in order to reduce the use of fossil-based raw materials in our coatings.
Thanks to huge efforts in R&D and close collaboration with the main multinational producing raw materials, we have developed a line of coatings formulated with
renewable organic waste materials that are not fit for human consumption companies and contribute to the reduction of CO2.
These bio-based coatings fall within the circular economy because these vegetable waste, used in raw materials, are returned to the production cycle, ensuring a significant reduction in the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.
Sustainability is a term whose use is almost inflated, but it is not a concept as simple as it seems.”

ICA Grpup ranked 73 in this year’s Top Companies Report.