Since 1997, Amsum & Ash has been outfitting homes and businesses with natural stone products in the Twin Cities and beyond. Recently, Amsum & Ash debuted its newest product: porcelain slab countertops. This durable alternate to marble is already making waves in the international marketplace, and it’s about to make its way into Twin Cities homes.
Amsum & Ash, which has showrooms at International Market Square and in Northeast Minneapolis and has outfitted both Penny’s Coffee locations and the Bachelor Farmer restaurant and cafe with its stone slabs, is the first to bring the sleek, stylish new product to the Minnesota marketplace. While porcelain tile dates back as far as 4000 B.C., the material has never been manufactured in slabs until recently, thanks to new manufacturing capabilities.
“We jumped on it quickly,” says Amsum & Ash founder, Amit Gupta. “Now you can buy a nine-by-five-foot slab in porcelain.”
Gupta says for now, his company is importing the slabs from manufacturers in Italy and Spain to test it out in the U.S. marketplace. If consumers bite, he says they’re considering setting up a plant overseas to manufacture it themselves. TAB, the parent company of the Minneapolis-based importer and wholesale distributor, is currently one of the largest manufacturers of stone products around the world, such as granite, marble, slate, onyx, sandstone, limestone, and soapstone, enabling Amsum & Ash to stock some of the highest quality, hard-to-find, unique selections of stone products in the U.S.