“Brazil is a country that has vast mineral wealth, with beautiful natural examples of very beautiful stones, which can be explored in architectural and decorative projects. Among them, quartzites stand out, which are owners of rare beauty and differentiate themselves in the most diverse environments. Therefore, it can be used both indoors and outdoors. This is also because of the fact that the material has high resistance to solar heating”.
With these quotes above, on the public-facing architecture website of one of the main porcelain tile manufacturers in Brazil, we will ponder the shamelessness with which the natural stone sector has been usurped by several important companies in the internal and external coatings segment all around the world.
The examples are spread all over the place and to put it in context, we will exemplify with a case from Sweden and another from Brazil.
In a recent article in Stone-Ideas, editor Peter Becker narrates a usual “and particularly vexing, consumer fraud using false names existing in Sweden in the case of Norrvange limestone (marble)” by the company Bricmate.
“For several years, Bricmate has been using the Norrvange designation for one of its ceramic varieties. In fact, he did the same with the name of another stone of national importance, the Kolmården marble”.
The company Bricmate, gave its products that imitate natural stone, the generic title of "Granitkeramik", which means "Ceramic Granite".
"The issue has been taking legal contours in various sectors, such as when on July 14, 2017, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that these "fantasy" names are prohibited in the territory of the 27 states."
And it adds that in the above-mentioned case, by the highest court of the European Union in Luxembourg, they decided on names such as “vegetable butter”, which a manufacturer had given to its products. The judges clarified that butter and cheese, or milk always comes from animals and never from plants, so combining the two terms could mislead the consumer.
“It's the same as with Bricmate's "granite ceramics": a granite will never be a ceramic, because natural stone was created by nature and not by man."
In the case of Brazil, things are gaining abusive contours, of evident bad faith and disrespect to consumers, as there are companies that have been launching lines of products on 2021, in an attempt to mislead consumers, as they highlight the qualities of natural products (marbles, granites and quartzites) in its ceramic products. Not enough, they still appropriate the names of natural stones to give title to the line of these products, for example: “Porcelain Quartzites”.
However, porcelain tiles under ABNT NBR 15463:2013 are defined as "ceramic plates composed of clay, feldspar and other inorganic raw materials, formed by extrusion, pressing or other processes, which can be enameled or unglazed, polished or natural, rectified or not rectified”.
Based on the technical definition and obvious knowledge on the ceramic product by its industries, why they want to confuse architecture and decoration professionals and, above all, end consumers, affirming the advantages of Quartzites, which is a natural product, and linking the designation of Quartzites to a line of porcelain tiles which is a ceramic material? Why appropriate the commercial terminologies already characterized and used by natural stone producers such as the Mont Blanc and Taj Mahal Quartzites, and also White Siena Granite?
We are faced with the same situation described in the case of Sweden, where here in Brazil the company gave its products, which mimic in their enameled features, the designs and colors of natural stones, the generic title of “Quartzites”.
The attitude of a ceramic tile company to seek to confuse specifiers and consumers, by announcing that: "it launched Quartzites, a line of porcelain with the most beautiful examples of mineral wealth in Brazil", possibly falls within the field of deceit or as it is popularly said, hitchhiking, or even selling a pig in a poke, and it is time for the natural stone sector to seek to clarify to its customers that its products are the only natural ones and the result of large investments and arduous research and mineral exploration.
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