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BRITYREX
INTERNATIONAL
Kingpin was pleasantly surprised by the positive response it received at Brityrex
Tyres Direct’s Greg Oliver talking up the Malatesta brand
Enter Tyres’ Dariusz Kasina and Marcin Szafraniec talk through the quality of the Targum product
Brityrex a Success for Retreaders
that a recently opened factory outlet at their Agnani plant was selling around 700 pieces per month just in the local market and there is a growing confidence in the company and its products. “We have been around for 60 years and almost every year we invest in new moulds and new technology. We keep improving and our sales keep increasing.” Greg Oliver confirmed that in the UK Tyres Direct was selling a high percentage of Malatesta products and that demand was on the up
higher tyre damage.” Polish-owned, UK based agents for Targum, Enter Tyres, have been working the UK market distributing retreaded car tyres for the past year. Dariusz Kasina and Marcin Szafraniec had previously worked with another Polish retreader, but differences in policy resulted in a split. However, the Polish duo had gained considerable experience in selling Polish retreads in the UK and Ireland market and teamed up with Joanna Rzepka from the Tyres
Brityrex has been a long time coming, and the event held at Event City in Manchester was perhaps not as well supported by the manufacturers and wholesalers as the organisers might have hoped. However, supported by Retreading Business, the retread sector was well represented with seven car tyre retreaders represented at the show.
Car tyre retreading, it seems, is back in favour and in the UK market, where only Kingpin has held its ground, the market is open for exploitation by European retreaders and they turned up at Brityrex and did business throughout the show.
The retread sector has, by and large, addressed the challenges of poor quality, in a tight market only those delivering the right product will survive. So, largely, quality is rarely an issue with modern car and 4x4 retreads, with return rates similar to or better than new tyre returns according to the producers. Jack Crangle’s Kingpin only decided to come to the show at the last minute, in some way prompted by Retreading Business’s coverage of a Polish retreader, who is now selling in some volume in the UK. Talking to Kingpin on the afternoon of the opening day of the show, Jack was surprised by the positive response that Kingpin had received. “We have not done a tyre show before and we were not sure what to expect. So, we set ourselves what we thought was a reasonable target for the week. We have broken that target on the first day.”
The Kingpin stand had actually been one of the busiest stands at the show, from shortly after opening through till about 3:00pm
there was hardly a moment when people were not talking business, and at times they were queuing up to talk to Kingpin.
The display was simple, and sitting almost uncelebrated amongst their sample tyres was a first for Kingpin, a run flat retread.
This is a highly specialised product and casings limited, not only because runflats are not as common as conventional tyres, but because every company produces run flats in a different way. So, in order to produce run flat tyres Kinpin have to select runflats that have not been run flat in their first life, and has to match a brand of runflat to a particular size of tyre in order to maintain any sort of uniformity. Needless to say, interest in the retreaded runflat was high as it gives the retailers a low cost alternative for the runflat customer, and also a profit opportunity due to the price differential.
Italian retread masters, Malatesta were present , supported by UK distributor, Luton-based Tyres Direct, run by Gary and Greg Oliver. Matteo Malatesta explained that the idea of coming to the show was, as always to meet existing customers, to support the brand and the distributor and to build new contacts.
“There is”, he said, “a building interest in retreaded car and 4x4 tyres. People are becoming aware, certainly in Italy, that cheap Chinese tyres are not the bargain that they appear to be. The price differential has narrowed, and quality-wise our retreads are better than many cheap Chinese brands – we offer better mileage and better safety.”
Matteo told Retreading Business
for car, 4x4 and light truck retreads, particularly winter tyre patterns. However, the bulk of business, around 80 per cent was still to the specialist 4x4 market. “The main buyers are those who actually use their 4x4 vehicles, farmers, agriculturalists, construction companies and enthusiasts. People who need tyres that work and who may have a higher replacement rate because their working conditions lead to
International Agency to promote Targum retreads in the UK.
The company self distributes, and is building a clientele from a customer base created the old fashioned way, going around with a van and selling door to door. Marcin says, “It was difficult at first. People didn’t like the idea of a retread. When they realised they were Polish retreads they were even less happy. However, when we convinced them to try the
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