The retreading industry is not only a market made up of material suppliers or retreaders. Producers of retreading machinery, equipment and whole retreading plants also play an important role in safeguarding the quality of a retreaded truck tyre. With 52 years in the industry behind it, the Italian family-owned company Matteuzzi is a firm that has established standards for the industry throughout its entire existence, for example with its first inspection spreader or the first computerised buffing machines launched in the 1980s. Matteuzzi also offers a product range for the production of pre-cured treads, making Matteuzzi’s products core to the retreading industry.

While the European retreading business is mostly stagnant, the market situation apparently isn’t having a negative impact on Matteuzzi’s machinery and retreading plant business. Last year, as Sandra Matteuzzi explains during an interview with TYRES & ACCESSORIES, the Italian company was even able to increase its annual turnover by about 25 per cent. For a company disclosing a turnover figure of about 14 million euros, its beginnings were much humbler than can be imagined today – Matteuzzi’s first product, manufactured in 1956, was a solution spraying tank.
Only by ten years later the company, based in Calderara di Reno near Bologna, experienced its major international breakthrough with the launch of its “540/2” inspection spreader for truck tyres. To date more than 3,600 units of this spreader have been sold globally, reports Mrs Matteuzzi with pride. The “540/2“ is still produced in Matteuzzi’s factory, and older specimens still perform sterling service. Just very recently an enquiry was received from a French customer seeking a spare part for his Matteuzzi spreader, produced 30 years ago, and even the very first “540/2“ inspection spreader ever built is still in use at a retreading plant near Bologna.
In the late 1980s Matteuzzi decided to embrace computer technology and offer a higher level of automation for its products. This is in part why Matteuzzi’s first computerised buffing machines, the “RAS 98-E“ and “RAS 90 DC-4“, have earned a strong reputation throughout the whole industry. At a time when most retreading machinery suppliers still focused on mechanical engineering, Matteuzzi launched in 1989 its first computerised buffing machine as the latest industry innovation. Today, more than 900 computerised Matteuzzi buffing machines are in operation around the globe.
Together with machinery like this, which is used in retreading plants, Matteuzzi also sells complete retreading plants as well as ancillary equipment. And for producers of pre-cured treads – Matteuzzi’s second field of business – the Italian company offers a variety of equipment and machinery, primarily machinery for the finishing of tread after it has been vulcanised. Furthermore, since 1975 the company has also produced and sold machines for the new tyre industry, such as trimming or inspection/testing machines. This is Matteuzzi’s third field of business.
Although Matteuzzi has now been established in Italy for more than half a century, today North America is its largest sales market. Only 25 per cent of Matteuzzi’s turnover is actually generated within Europe. The company either cooperates with distributors to sell its products or it conducts sales and distribution in its own name.
The company today is run by Claudio and Emilio Matteuzzi, sons of the founder Giulio Matteuzzi. Both sons – after they took over the company in 1971 – promptly extended the company’s product range to what it is today. Other milestone products in Matteuzzi’s corporate history since then have included inspection and testing machines for casings or retreaded truck tyres as well as automatic trimming machines for the new tyre industry. At Calderara di Reno, where Matteuzzi operates its factory, built in 1979, there are about 30 employees. Matteuzzi also sources parts and pre-assembled components from suppliers for its own machinery.