In the early 1990s, kitchens worldwide underwent a quiet revolution — one that started with their countertops. Once an intimate and familiar space, the kitchen began to transform into a more social hub. Its functional dimension expanded to incorporate design, color and durability, giving it a whole new meaning.

A growing US footprint
Since 1995, the Cosentino brand has steadily expanded its presence across the United States. Today, their American activities employ around 1,200 people in various facilities, including distribution hubs, fabrication workshops, centers and showrooms in major American cities, providing materials to workshops, kitchen and bathroom stores, architects and designers.

The company’s presence continues to grow, with new showrooms and Cosentino City locations recently opening in Dallas and Richmond. And a new factory in Jacksonville, Florida, will be Cosentino’s first factory outside of Spain and it will join its Miami headquarters as major investments in Florida.

This was when the family-owned company, Cosentino, introduced Silestone — a then quartz-based engineered surface that became synonymous with innovation and sophisticated design. Silestone combined the traditional virtues of natural stone with advanced design and superior resistance to everyday use. Cosentino’s continuous investment in research and development completely reshaped Silestone, its flagship product for over 30 years, now present in millions of kitchens around the world.    

Over the years, the brand has continuously evolved, offering new designs and features that enhance its original benefits. Silestone became an antibacterial surface and introduced cutting-edge innovations like N-Boost, which repels liquids and prevents fingerprint marks, opening new creative possibilities for architects and designers.  

Ongoing research and knowledge exchange with professionals in architecture and interior design led to the development of Dekton more than a decade ago. This ultra-compact surface opened new frontiers for Cosentino, enabling its use in facades, terraces, bathrooms and furniture, both indoors and outdoors. These Cosentino brands quickly became well-known for their quality, design and innovation and began to appear in spaces beyond the home, including hotels, shopping centers and public spaces.

But Cosentino’s commitment to innovation did not stop there. In 2020, after more than seven years of research and 90,000 hours of work, the company introduced Hybriq+® technology, marking a disruptive leap in the market. This breakthrough allowed for the incorporation of premium minerals and alternative raw materials, replacing quartz. The result was a new generation of hybrid mineral surfaces offering a wider variety of colors, designs, effects and textures.

The post-pandemic home and the rise of sustainable innovation  

The 2020 pandemic changed the world. The kitchen once again took center stage in post-COVID life, becoming a multipurpose space, along with the bathroom, living room and bedrooms. Life within four walls led people to rethink their home spaces and their functionality.  

Since 2022, thanks to Hybriq+® technology, Cosentino has progressively reduced crystalline silica in its products. By 2023, all Silestone production contained less than 40% silica, making it comparable to natural stones like granite. Additionally, premium minerals and recycled raw materials were incorporated, making Silestone a more sustainable surface.  

In 2024, Cosentino achieved a major breakthrough as silica reduction in its new Silestone collections dropped below 10%. Thanks to innovation and advanced design, the original characteristics of Silestone have been further enhanced, offering greater depth in colors, patterns and effects. As a renowned designer recently put it, “Cosentino enhances nature with designs that exist only in the imagination of the hundreds of people working in its R&D team.”

Those professionals are committed not only to beauty and quality but also to rigorous durability testing. In Cosentino’s laboratories, Silestone and Dekton slabs undergo real-life stress tests, assessing their performance under extreme temperatures, impact and abrasive substances to ensure long-lasting resilience.  

Reinventing a 20th-century product with 21st-century means  

Continuous research and significant investments have enabled Cosentino to develop a new generation of surfaces using premium minerals. As Valentín Tijeras, VP of Global Product, R&D and Quality, describes it, the company is “reinventing a 20th-century product with the technology of the 21st century.”   

In this new era, customers demand materials produced in harmony with nature. Cosentino is fully committed to this, using at least 20 percent recycled materials, 100 percent renewable electricity and recycling 99 percent of the water used in production. All of this is achieved while maintaining the physical and mechanical properties valued for decades, while enhancing design and color depth to achieve the sought-after “real full-body” effect.

Cosentino has seamlessly connected nature, design and innovation — three key pillars for redefining a product that continues to lead the global market in kitchen and bathroom surfaces. Collaborations with designers such as Tom Dixon, Claudia Afshar and the Italian studio FormaFantasma have resulted in iconic collections like Dekton Pietra Edition and Earthic by Silestone.

Always in tune with emerging trends, the company welcomes over 8,000 architects, designers, decorators and industry professionals each year to its headquarters, fostering an exchange of ideas and knowledge that ultimately shapes its collections. This exchange also flows back into the industry, inspiring professionals to create unique, one-of-a-kind spaces for their clients.

The spirit at the origin of the Company’s founding remains present— a relentless desire to improve and enhance the products it offers for the betterment of the industry, the world of design and the planet. Cosentino continues to incorporate new minerals and raw materials in its surfaces, while developing innovative ways to combine them that will push the boundaries of creative applications.

Leadership and innovation

Cosentino’s long history of innovation and investment impacts the rest of the industry, including competitors and fabrication workshops. This leadership has paved the way for the reduction of silica in these types of surfaces and the first collections with this feature have already started to appear on the market, which will become a standard in the short term.

Through its actions and investments, Cosentino contributes to achieving a more resource-efficient industrial model. Its purpose is to provide value-added, durable products that inspire and enhance our homes and people’s lives.