SFA SANIFLO Canada celebrates 35 years of innovation

SFA SANIFLO Canada celebrates 35 years of innovation with a still-growing, above-floor plumbing product offering

Established in the late 1980s, the French company’s Canadian profile continues to rise along with the professional plumber’s understanding of the technology and its many applications for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings.

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO (APRIL 3, 2024) — SFA SANIFLO Canada is spending 2024 marking an important milestone for its brand, as it celebrates its 35th anniversary in Canada and North America. The Canadian company was established by the Paris-based SFA GROUP, which originated macerating plumbing 65 years ago in France and has continued to lead this innovative technology’s commercialization worldwide.

Like its parent, SFA SANIFLO Canada was created to offer above-floor macerating and grinder pump systems, drain-water and condensing pumps, and heavy-duty lifting stations for a wide range of residential, commercial, and industrial applications. The goal from the start was to ease the contractor’s installation challenge and time on the job, while also providing home and building owners with a high-performance and affordable solution for locating bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, and other plumbing facilities wherever they are needed.

Now based in Cambridge, Ontario, SFA SANIFLO Canada is one of 29 subsidiaries worldwide for SFA GROUP, which was founded in 1958. Saniflo products are marketed through distribution channels in Canada as well as all of North America, and the full product line is readily available to the trades through plumbing wholesalers.

Creating a new market: So, it is perfectly understandable why current SFA SANIFLO Canada National Sales Manager and Managing Director Phil Warren and his team of 16 employees would be celebrating the steady growth and expansion of the Canadian subsidiary over the past three and a half decades and its now-complete line of above-floor pumping systems. Having grown from the original three SKUs to the present 35, today’s SFA SANIFLO product range can handle not only smaller plumbing-drainage applications but also much larger, heavy-duty commercial and industrial projects.

However, Warren and colleagues can be equally proud of the fact that SFA GROUP launched not just a new plumbing-products company in December 1987, but an entirely new market segment. At that time, Sanitary For All — the original company name, changed to Saniflo in 2004 — was literally the only manufacturer of its kind throughout North America. Before SFA SANIFLO sold its first drain pump or macerator, it’s safe to say that no Canadian contractor or homeowner knew much about above-floor pump systems and the innovative solutions they could bring to virtually any building space.

French origins: Originally a designer of water treatment-plant equipment, SFA GROUP pioneered the macerator for plumbing applications in France in the late 1950s. By reducing waste to slurry and pumping it to a main drain line, the new technology allowed toilets, sinks, and other plumbing fixtures to be installed atop finished floors virtually anywhere in any type of structure where no below-floor drainage existed. This solution was just what the French housing industry needed, representing a path forward after the Second World War and a return to normalcy.

Thirty years later and across the Atlantic, the SFA SANIFLO brand and its innovative, but still-unknown drainage solutions needed time to forge meaningful connections with Canadian plumbing professionals. As wholesalers and their contractor customers came to encounter, first-hand, the cost and aesthetic advantages of Saniflo’s innovative macerating, drain-pump, and condensate solutions, business began to grow through the traditional wholesale channel.

“Every major wholesaler in Canada now buys our products,” reports Warren, who joined SFA SANIFLO Canada in October 2013 as Eastern Regional Sales Manager and was promoted to his current position six years later.

“Every wholesale buying group now also partners with us,” he continues. “In our first two decades and even into the 2000s, our business was concentrated in the population centers of eastern Canada. But in recent years, we have been able to expand our presence in the West, as professional plumbing and mechanical contractors became more familiar with our offering.”

And while sales were once dominated by only a few SKUs in the early years, SFA SANIFLO Canada worked hard to obtain CSA and ASME listings, as well as approvals from various Canadian plumbing code bodies. The company also helped develop the ANSI standard for macerating systems.

Consequently, the professional trade’s support for the entire Saniflo offering has steadily expanded through the years, as the plumber’s grasp of how to use maceration technology cost-effectively in various applications broadened and deepened.

International growth: While SFA SANIFLO Canada has grown over three and a half decades, so has its French parent. Today, the 29 SFA GROUP subsidiaries and its approximately 1,200 employees operate in 32 different countries on five continents, doing business in more than 70 countries.

A critical driver of this international growth has been SFA GROUP’s longstanding commitment to integrating its manufacturing operations vertically. All Saniflo products sold worldwide, including product molds, circuit boards, components assembly, and even motors, are manufactured by SFA GROUP at its 20-acre complex in Brégy.

The Brégy plant is the Group’s historic factory, explains Regis Saragosti, CEO of the Edison, NJ-based SFA SANIFLO North America, which encompasses not only Canada, but also the U.S. and Mexican operations.

“This is where the famous macerators that made the Group’s name all over the world are manufactured,” he says. “Over the years, Brégy has grown from its humble beginnings as an assembly facility to become a true production hub that’s almost self-sufficient. To master product quality from start to finish, nothing beats doing your own manufacturing of all the components you need.”

Vertical integration enables SFA to exert a high level of quality control over all aspects of its manufacturing processes and production. The objective is to assure customers that Saniflo products will reliably perform at a high level for years, even under the most demanding conditions, and backed by the maceration field’s best warranties.  

“From its inception in 1958 to its expansion throughout Europe and, eventually, into Canada and all of North America, SFA GROUP has revolutionized the ease and flexibility of commercial and residential bathroom installations through its macerating technology,” says Regis Saragosti.

“Most industry professionals in Canada now readily recognize the Saniflo brand, the product and service excellence it offers, and — most importantly — the value we can deliver to them and their customers.”

ABOUT SFA SANIFLO®

SFA SANIFLO North America – whose parent company, SFA GROUP, originated macerating plumbing technology – offers a complete line of above-floor macerating and grinder pump systems, drain-water and condensing pumps, and heavy-duty lifting stations for a wide range of residential, commercial, and industrial applications. SFA GROUP developed its innovative, “above-floor plumbing” technology more than a half-century ago and has led its commercialization worldwide. Today, the company markets macerating technology through 29 subsidiaries in 32 different countries on five continents, doing business in more than 70 countries. It has sold more than six million units worldwide since 1958. SANIFLO products are available through independent sales agents throughout North America, and the product line is currently available at most major plumbing wholesalers and hardware retailers.

●       For more information, contact Saniflo Canada at 1-800-363-5874. Or visit the Saniflo Canada website at https://www.saniflo.ca/en/.

●       For editorial assistance, including photography, contact John O’Reilly ([email protected]) or Payton Meyers ([email protected]) c/o GreenHouse Digital + PR: 708-428-6385.

●       To download this press release and high-resolution images to accompany it, please visit:
https://saniflo-ca.greenhousedigitalpr.com/35th-anniversary.