Aspinwall & Co. Ltd

CORPORATE PROFILE

Aspinwall & Co. Ltd., one of the earliest commercial enterprises founded during the British era in South India, was established in 1867 by the legendary English trader and visionary John H. Aspinwall, who offered a range of shipping services and traded in timber, spices and agro-products. He left the fortunes of his company in the good hands of his business partners, the Black brothers, who consolidated the business and sowed the seeds of the Aspinwall enterprise.

In 1956, the Royal Family of Travancore, the erstwhile rulers of Kerala, South India acquired a small interest in Aspinwall, when the company became a public limited company. In the early 1970’s when the English owners decided to divest their ownership in Aspinwall, the controlling interest was taken over by the Royal Family.

The change of ownership triggered an era of modernization and expansion of the existing business lines as well as diversification into new areas of growth. Today, Aspinwall has business interests in the areas of Shipping services, Tourism & Hospitality, Coffee processing, Natural Rubber & processing, and Natural Fibre processing, all with a strong emphasis on exports.

Recently, Aspinwall decided to move beyond its pan-India establishment and engage in operations outside of India, in order to sustain and manage growth and expansion. The company has to ‘think global and act local’ with the focal objective to optimise our proposition to our overseas business partners and provide them with new local value-added services. Also it was felt necessary to develop a global presence to adapt and respond to changing or market conditions and customer demand. Meanwhile our maiden overseas branch has been established in the Netherlands, at close proximity to Port of Rotterdam and now we are established in Atlanta, Georgia, "the carpet capital of the world" in conjunction with our local business partner.

PROFILE OF OUR NATURAL FIBRE DIVISION

Aspinwall entered the natural fibre processing industry over a hundred years ago with the manufacturing of handloom and powerloom matting products made from the cocos fibre, called ‘coir’. Coir, being India’s golden gift to the world, is a natural fibre extracted from the protective coconut husk, and is renowned for its versatility, natural elegance, and eco-friendliness (100% bio-degradable).

From the early days, our coir processing activities have been concentrated around the Alleppey region in Kerala Sate. This local century-old experience and expertise has been consciously and cautiously handed down through generations of talented artists and artisans to today’s factory craftsmen.

With coir handloom mats as our traditional base, Aspinwall has meanwhile diversified into developing and producing rubber-backed and pvc-backed coir mats, and natural rubber mats as well as floorcoverings made from other natural fibres such as jute, sisal and seagrass. Our natural fibre mats are made-to-order and exported to buyers in all parts of the world, of which the majority goes into the markets of United States and Europe.

In addition to our (door)mats, we produce coir geotextiles, which are used in environment engineering to prevent soil erosion, as well as coir pith (a natural and eco-friendly replacement for peat moss), which is applied in horticulture as a water-retaining agent and growth medium.

Next to our highly sophisticated, ISO 9001 certified, manufacturing and logistics operations, Aspinwall is proud of our well-staffed and highly-skilled design & development centre. Apart from continuously upgrading and extending our doormat library filled with contemporary, traditional, funny, catchy design ideas, we are fully catered to design & manufacture coir mats which are tailored to specific buyer requirements.

With the recent establishment of our branch office in the Netherlands and the United States of America, Aspinwall aims to effectively promote our natural fibre product offering, and in addition provide supporting value-adding services, e.g. warehousing c.q. stock keeping facilities as well as door-to-door delivery, to our buyers across Europe and USA.