Las Vegas—To say that AHF Products has grown in a few short years would be a vast understatement. Once predominantly a company focused on solid hardwood, AHF has since evolved into a powerhouse supplier offering the full spectrum of hard surface products. Now 15 brands strong—and with a portfolio that has been expanded over the past five years to include resilient, laminate and, more recently, tile—AHF Products has certainly come a long way, baby.
That rapid growth was on full display at the company’s sprawling, 4,000-square-foot booth here at Surfaces 2024. “It’s awesome and it’s humbling at the same time,” Brian Carson, AHF Products president and CEO, told FCNews during a sit-down at the show. “We’re five years old— and it was just five years ago we were in a little room downstairs at Mandalay Bay. But here we are 15 brands later and we are in virtually all the hard surface product categories.”
But not just numerous brands for the sake of stockpiling brands. AHF Products boasts some of the most well-known names in the history of flooring, according to Carson. “As a company we’re only five years young, but the Armstrong flooring brand, for example, goes back to the mid- 1800s. And let’s not forget about Bruce and Robbins—both of which go back several centuries. America was literally built on our floors. We were going through some of the old historical materials from the wood plants and the vinyl plants, and I saw one of the patterns that my brother and I used to play on when we were little kids.”
The weight of that legacy isn’t lost on Carson. “We went to school and were probably born on floors that AHF made,” he said. “It was in our homes, and we played on it as kids. It’s such a privilege to be able to breathe new life into these brands and these plants.”
The legacy behind some of those iconic brands, like Bruce, Armstrong Flooring, Robbins, Hartco and, now, Crossville, was also top of mind among the company’s retailer customers. As Carson explained: “Many of our customers tell us things like, ‘My dad used to sell this brand!’ Probably half the people in this building, whether they’re competitors, customers, whatever—they made a living with our floors. That really hit home at this show.”
Jennifer Zimmerman, chief commercial officer, AHF Products, shared similar observations. “The father of one of our new sales guys who came over with the Crossville acquisition was a Bruce distributor. We gave him a Bruce polo shirt, and he wore it on Christmas day. He was so proud. That shows us that the brand means something to a lot of people.”
If nothing else, AHF Products’ expanded product offering across numerous hard surface categories gives customers a wealth of options to offer buyers and end users. And at the end of the day, that matters most. “We focus on providing value, stylish products and designs that allow our customers to be more successful,” Carson said. “It’s all about helping them find solutions to help grow their business. That’s really why we’re here.”
That sentiment was supported by the steady stream of traffic throughout the booth over the course of the show. “It’s been so busy with all the meetings going on in our space,” Zimmerman concurred. “Funny, when we decided to double our booth size, we thought for a second that it might be too big! But it’s been great—we were overflowing.”
Even more noteworthy was the fact that AHF Products generated interest among potential commercial flooring clients—a rarity given the fact that Surfaces largely targets the residential/specialty retail market. “We had a lot of commercial traffic here, which we thought was very interesting,” Zimmerman added.
