WAREGEM, Belgium —Ragolle, a major weaver of residential fabrics, is integrating a complete line of contract fabrics to its collection with the absorption of ITM designs, a Belgian contract mill acquired in September.

The contract lines will be displayed at Heimtextil 2012.

Ragolle Contract is the name of the new business which will be added to the sales bag of the existing Ragolle sales team, said Guy Parmentier, export manager. He too will handle export sales of the contract fabrics along with the residential lines. “Our existing sales staff as well as our inside sales follow up team is currently being trained by the former sales director at ITM as well as the planning- and product controller at ITM. Ragolle Contract is Born!!

“We are now able to offer a nearly complete contract fabric range along with Ragolle home interior decoration collections. This should give us more and better opportunities in those fields that we were unable to previously serve,” Parmentier said.

“Furthermore, more and more we see the concentration of purchasing power at the same company or with the same supplier, particularly when the customer has confidence in the financial strength of his supplier and looks for a long term business relationship. Just as for our regular fabric lines – domestic upholstery and deco fabrics – we are convinced that with our Ragolle strategy and well known service towards our customer, short delivery, by the piece ordering and correct pricing, we will have our place in the contract market.” 

All the items under the ITM product range were either in 100% Trevira® CS yarns or in the special composition cotton/nylon and these will be continued, he said. “On all of these products  we will provide the minimum of the contract requirements within the EEC norms which means always a minimum of 40,000 rubs Martindale.”

Ragolle is currently integrating all three designers from ITM into its design department – under the Ragolle design department umbrella but they will be dedicated to the contract lines.

“As we see a global growth in the hospitality business, we will focus on our current important export markets such as North and South / Latin  America; Middle East and Southeast Asia. “Nevertheless we are keeping in mind our home market in the EEC, knowing that particularly within the USA – Canada and Mexico there is serious potential. We will focus on the medium to higher end level.”

Ragolle said it will honor its actual sales strategy which is to work closely and only through the specialists and contract jobbers and/or distributors.

“As a result of our continuous travels and market research, the integration of the ITM collection, mainly focusing on the specific “contract business“, will be a serious asset in the further development of the Ragolle strategy to enter seriously and strongly, the contract and hospitality market,” he said. 

“Besides this new avenue, the additional warps and yarn banks of the company ITM might become a nice supplement to our current upholstery fabric business,”  

Ragolle is one of the leading weaving mills producing upholstery and home interior decoration fabrics as well as carpets/rugs. “We want to emphasize that our company Ragolle will ensure the continuity on all actual programs as well as provide the necessary support towards the existing ITM customer base,” Parmentier added. “In other words, company Ragolle NV guarantees full continuation on current programs, service and delivery on all running and eventual future orders.”

“With Ragolle’s technical know-how and organization, professional structure and long term strategy, we are committed to further develop and provide new collections within the known product range of the former ITM programs, focusing seriously towards the contract and hospitality industry worldwide.”    F&FI