XATICO is a company founded in 2006 which is focused on the distribution of mineral fillers while providing technical knowledge related to the diverse range of applications for those materials. The company is currently active in Western Europe, with locations in Benelux, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. Within the group, XATICO Iberia is the company that takes care of the markets in Southwestern Europe, mainly Spain and Portugal, with some spot business in North Africa (Maghreb countries).
Interview with Juanan López, Sales Director at XATICO.
What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Juanan López: The company distributes mineral fillers and is specialized in performance minerals. Fillers tend to be considered commodities due to their low added value and cheap prices – indeed, many of them are used in applications such as paints or adhesives to decrease the cost of production (they are cheaper than the monomers and plasticizers and they can replace them partially while adding extra properties to the mixture). In the case of XATICO, the company is focused on mineral fillers that provide an extra performance on most of the applications, so we can consider we make business with materials that are specialties within the commodity tag.
The fact of managing high-quality products, combined with a broad portfolio of minerals, results on a wide range of industries in which we are present. We offer multiple solutions to our customers producing rubber, plastics, paints and other coatings, adhesives and sealants, paper, polishes or detergents. We have also an increasing presence in construction industry and are also introducing ourselves in high-demanding markets with strong regulatory demands, such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food, feed and agriculture.
What’s the news about new products/services?
J.L: We have recently added new pharma and cosmetic grades to our portfolio. This means that our minerals can now also be used in those industries, as they comply with all the necessary regulations and provide the high quality that the industry demands. We are now beginning to promote some very interesting materials, and we see a big potential of growth for our company.
Furthermore, Xatico is looking to further develop its activities in the agricultural sector, with a focus on animal well-being, crop cultivation, and animal nutrition. We offer a range of high-performance mineral fillers in our portfolio that are particularly well-suited for these applications.
Customers value the fact that we can offer not only isolated solutions but a complete portfolio of powder materials that can solve all their needs in this field.
What are the ranges of products/services?
J.L: In the field of mineral fillers, we have a complete portfolio that go from the purest commodities of calcium carbonate, talc, dolomite… to some more specialized solutions (diatomaceous earth, perlite, flame retardants like zinc borate, magnesium hydroxide…). We also count with unique minerals like the Neuburg siliceous earth that is produced by our long-term partner Hoffmann Mineral. This is a mineral that naturally combines the platy structure of kaolinite and the corpuscular shape of silica. Thanks to this unique structure, these products are able to offer an outstanding performance in multiple applications, providing a superior result than the one normally obtains with regular kaolin or standard silica.
Unlike many distributors, we do not work with MOQ when supplying our minerals. We like to understand our customer’s problems and needs and be a key player in supporting solutions to those concerns.
For example, we are used to offering tailor-made pallets to some of our customers. Some of our customers work in small factories and deal with many different mineral fillers (talc, dolomite, calcium carbonate, kaolin… to name a few of them). Of course, those small factories do not have room enough to store several pallets of each material so we make special pallets for them, combining bags from the different minerals, and having all their needs for production within one single pallet. This way, they reduce their warehousing needs, increasing their operational and environmental efficiency.
We also provide solutions when it comes to packaging issues. Some customers cannot afford to buy certain products in standard paper bags. For those cases, we are able to offer the same material in the requested packaging format. This may include Big Bags, bulk deliveries with silo trucks or even pre-weighted low-melting bags (the latter is a solution that is very common in the rubber industry and gives extremely good results to the compounders).
What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
J.L: Generally speaking, the market is currently in a stable situation, even though some small shrinkage is already visible in certain industries. Due to the fact that we are present in many industries, some of the trends get cancelled between each other (one industry grows while some other may shrink).
What we see in the latest months is that demand is becoming more and more unpredictable, as customers prefer to stock as less material as possible and make their orders just in time. This is one of our challenges: managing our warehouses properly to ensure that we always have enough material to supply our customers even with a very short notice.
What can you tell us about market trends?
J.L: As we were saying in the previous question, the demand is becoming unpredictable. This only adds more complexity to a market environment which is already highly volatile and uncertain since the pandemic. Logically, the prolongation of the existing conflicts in places like Ukraine or Middle East is not helping with the trust of the different market stakeholders. Furthermore, the recent trade conflicts with all the tariffs going up and down is making the investors to hold their positions until things get clearer.
As a result, we see many new projects and developments that get cancelled or go into an indefinite hiatus. The existing market is still strong but the demand is asking more and more competitive prices so the customers can overcome all these challenges, so the whole scenario is not easy to handle.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
J.L: We are recently very active in promoting environmentally friendly solutions, especially in fields like construction industry. In this sense, we are developing and offering different solutions involving geopolymers. These are non-cement based systems that help the construction industry to reduce CO2 emissions. Although this is not an innovative technology per se, its application is relatively new and can be considered in a very early stage.
Thanks to our long-term and well-stablished partnerships, we are able to offer guidance and know-how to the formulation of these products, as well as supplying the basic materials to start with any geopolymer material: the silicate binders, the hardener (like our metakaolins, for instance) and the mineral fillers that add properties to the mixture.
What estimations do you have for the second half of 2025?
J.L: We think we will achieve our budget by the end of 2025, even though the market will be more challenging than initially predicted. It seems the shrinkage of certain markets will continue along the second half of the year, but we hope for an overall stable situation that helps to develop also some new projects.