Gravolite is one of the leading companies in the Sports Industry. It is also an internationally known sports brand spreading its wings in Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Gravolite has gained expertise in manufacturing, supplying, exporting, and importing a broad spectrum of Sports mats, yoga mats & yoga accessories. These mats are manufactured using high-quality JSR with EVA foam material with the help of R&D and using the latest technology.
Over the 4 decades, Gravolite has been seen as an outstanding sports solution and service provider to renowned competitive sporting events. The accreditation to partner with Common Wealth Games, Asian Games, World Championships and nearly a thousand plus national sporting events has given Gravolite a podium position; recognized as the most sought-after sports mat solutions and products suppliers of competitive sports events across India. Over the year, Gravolite offers high-tech products in different shapes, sizes, and colours to choose from. So the customer can customize the product according to their needs.
Gravolite mats are produced to be high-performance, durable and maximum shock absorption mats. The brand has been catering to multiple sports like; Wrestling, Basketball, Wushu, Karate, Judo, Kabaddi, Kho kho, Sambo, Gymnastics, Grappling and Yoga.
Today we are interacting with Mr. Vaibhav Somani, Director, Gravolite. Mr. Somani’s vision is to create a responsible sports brand and work towards providing the finest products to facilitate the smooth experience of gameplay for the athletes. He also believes in spreading awareness about the importance of good equipment and sports infrastructure requirement, which can revolutionize the sports scenario in India.
Here are a few questions which we have asked and their answers are given by Mr. Vaibhav himself.
- What was the initial thought behind the creation of Gravolite?
“The initial thought behind Gravolite was to provide a sporting brand for the indigenous sports played in India. If we look at cricket in India, it already has a good reputation and there are many reputed brands working for creating products for the game of cricket. But if we look at sports like Kabaddi, Wrestling and the likes indigenous to India, no serious Indian brand was working for them or providing them with the required sports infrastructure. We wanted to provide Indian sportsmen and athletes with the infrastructure that their competitive counterparts get in their homelands abroad. So, the sole reason to begin Gravolite was to create products that facilitate the performance of sports where we Indian have prowess.”
- What are the different lines of products that Gravolite offers?
“Apart from our known domain of being the most reputed player in sports mats and yoga mats, we also manufacture the soles for footwear too and this business unit primarily engages with the footwear industry where we have very strong inroads. We also make foam components for sectors like automobiles for their battery casing, etc and apart from this, we do manufacture for the packaging industry as well.
We also manufacture sports accessories like dummies, accessories used in gymnastics, gymnastics flooring, and all the major floorings of different sports, which in a way has become a specialty of Gravolite.
Gravolite has expanded its business portfolio to act as a solution provider by providing not only flooring infrastructure for sports complexes, gyms and yoga studios but also set up the grass area, specialized floor layouts for the workout area and custom solutions for other functional areas.”
- What is Cow Mat and the idea behind it?
“The idea comes from the practice of our love, care and respect for animals that we Indians have, and in this case specifically for Cows. Besides the reverence part, the inception of cow mats was primarily to address and promote animal welfare in the first place.
We know that India’s dairy produce and dairy consumption are both very high. 8.4 million farmers depend on the dairy sector for their livelihoods, out of which 71 percent are women (Agriculture Skill Council of India). But now, India has ushered in a new era of development for the dairy sector by adopting state-of-art milk procurement and processing infrastructure. As most parts of our country have higher temperatures during summer causing uneasiness to the cow, our cow mats come as an aid to regulate floor temperature.
Though India processes a large quantum of milk, it gets difficult to export this large volume of dairy produce from India due to our procurement standards that do not meet global hygiene standards. Thus, using a cow mat betters the cleanliness of the cows surrounding, enhancing the hygiene standard in the milking farm. Secondly, the cow’s udder needs to be absolutely infection-free. Also importantly the udders must be kept clear from dirt settling on them, while it sits or dust flying around while it is being milked. Using a cow mat aids in addressing these concerns. Thus, the manufacture and production of cow mats are to facilitate animal husbandry and particularly aid in the growth and wellbeing of the dairy sector.”
- What are the specialties of cow mat and why should customers prefer it?
“Cow mats are also known as buffalo mats. Cow mats are designed to be a long-term and cost-effective solution for animal welfare in dairy farming. These mats are easy to clean and prevent cows from contracting various diseases. It has other benefits like an increase in milk supply, reducing cow knee injury, reducing lameness, and creating a more comfortable environment for the cows.
Rough and hard flooring predispose cows to claw disorders as any such discomfort level adversely affect cows and buffalo’s health and wellbeing. The comfort of the cow is directly proportionate to milk production as studies prove that a healthy and comfortable cow produces 15% more milk. “
- What are the benefits of cow mat over a normal regular mat?
“Cow Mats are long-lasting and resilient to abrasion and heavyweights. It is easy to clean and does not require much maintenance or excess involvement of added cost. In fact, as cows produce the milk while resting, the comfort of the cow mats encourages them to lie down for longer periods thus increasing milk yield substantially.
A cow is a heavy animal weighing anywhere from 150 to 200 kg and due to this weight, the hooves of the cow and buffaloes normally damage the regular mats. If we even consider the interlocked mats for this purpose, they also get damaged from the hooves of the cow. However, the composition used by Gravolite for the preparation of the cow mat is done in such a way that the specialized mat is able to take the heavyweight of the cow and is resilient to the sharpness of the hooves. Thus, the cow mat has more advantages over a normal or interlocked mat. Our cow mats have a bottom surface drain feature as well that is extremely beneficial to enable a cleaner ambiance for better cow hygiene.”
- How do cow mats help in the welfare of cows?
“It reduces the chances of knee injury for the cows. It has an optimum suspension for hooves. The cow mats that we prepare have the ‘anti-fatigue’ feature by which the cows don’t get tired easily, and also reduces the chances of them getting lame and developing joint disorders. It provides them with weather insulation. The mats act as a thermal insulator and significantly reduce the hotness and coldness from the base floor. Its insulating property helps in maintaining body temperature contributing to improving the overall health of a dairy cow or buffalo. It even helps with increasing their blood supply in general and causes increased milk production. “
- Can we expect more innovations like this in the coming days?
“Yes. We are planning new innovations and a range of products for the sporting industry, the packaging industry as well as the automobile industry. A lot of the products and components that were being imported by India from abroad is being indigenously manufactured and supplied by us to many companies that used to be reliant on imports earlier.
Gravolite has been relentlessly working towards innovation and the on-site R&D lab’s core agenda is to develop new compositions and products on a regular basis. As a policy, the management team devotes at least 2 days a week with its R&D team to infuse new ideas and thoughts around new product innovations. Under ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiatives we want to make products worthy of international standards.
Definitely, one can expect some new products and new innovations from Gravolite to be announced shortly. “
- What is the future vision of Gravolite?
“We strive to make our products eco-friendly and we as an organization keep sustainability as a part of our business mission. At the end of the day, we build products that interface with humans.
All our plants are zero-discharge and zero-waste manufacturing plants and we power our manufacturing units using natural compressed gas-only supplied by IGL. We ensure there is no product of solid waste and we try to recycle materials as far as a possible material, nor do we allow pollutants that mix into water bodies. Apart from factory operations, we strive to make products that are eco-friendly too and as far as possible we ensure that our products are easily biodegradable. As we always believe that for all that we claim, we need to attest our statements, going forward we will be providing a sustainable product certificate with the product.”
Moreover, Gravolite has been offering world championship class sports equipment and engineered sports infrastructure solutions to 50% of the identified disciplines namely Boxing, Kabaddi, Wrestling, Gymnastics, Judo, Kho-Kho, Volleyball and Basketball primarily.
Besides the above 8 specialty disciplines, Gravolite offers custom sports flooring foam solution, shock absorption foaming mats and is also famous for its high-quality Yoga mats.
Gravolite was founded in 1980 and is the leading manufacturer and distributor of high-performance competitive sports flooring for multiple sports. The extensive experience of curating products to enhance performance for both the sports sector and the sportspersons has given Gravolite an international threshold to be known as one of the biggest, most recognizable, and appreciated companies across the sports Industry.
