Garlando is a company based in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

that produces

pocket billiards Pool is a classification of cue sports played on a table with six pockets along the , into which balls are deposited. "Pool billiards" is sometimes hyphenated and/or spelled with a singular "billiard". The WPA itself uses "pool-billiard" in it ...

(pool),

table football Table football, also known as foosball, table soccer, futbolito in Mexico, Taca Taca in Chile and Metegol in Argentina is a table-top game that is loosely based on association football. The aim of the game is to move the ball into the opponen ...

(foosball) and

ping pong Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

tables.

History

Garlando was founded officially in 1954 at

Spinetta Marengo Spinetta Marengo ( pms, Marengh) is a town in Piedmont, Italy located within the municipal boundaries of the ''comune'' of Alessandria. The population is 6,417. On 14 June 1800 the village was the scene of an Battle of Marengo, important battle ...

– a small village near

Alessandria Alessandria (; pms, Lissandria ) is a city and ''comune'' in Piedmont, Italy, and the capital of the Province of Alessandria. The city is sited on the alluvial plain between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, about east of Turin. Alessandria ...

– by Renato Garlando, the father of the present managing director, already in the market for the production of various wood objects. An activity that he, in his turn, had inherited from his father. Following the success of

, originating in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in the early 1920s, and later the United States, Spain and France, Renato Garlando decided to produce them for the Italian market, where he had unexpected success. From then on, the company continuously grew. Foreign countries were added to the domestic revenue, including overseas to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, where the Garlando football tables experienced a boom in the 1970s. During this time, Garlando began manufacturing

pool tables A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table (furniture), table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, Pool (cue sports), pool, Russian pyramid, pyramid or snooker) provid ...

with the same domestic success as with table football equipment. In the course of the 1980s, the current managing director, Giuseppe Garlando, took the lead and, with his brother Marino, began renovating the working procedures which, from still largely craftsmanlike, became industrialised and standardised. In the same period the factory dimensions enlarged, the number of the employees increased, while they become more and more skilled, new computerised machinery is purchased to reach the utmost precision in the output, new foreign markets are open on which Garlando soon becomes a leader. In the 1990s, the

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

markets were tapped, and the product range was expanded to meet the requirements of new segments of public. To meet more and more urgent production requirements, late in 2002 the company left Spinetta Marengo to move to their much more modern premises at

Pozzolo Formigaro Pozzolo Formigaro is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about southeast of Turin and about southeast of Alessandria. As of 1 January 2022, it had a population of 4,507 and an area o ...

, near

Novi Ligure Novi Ligure (; lij, Nêuve ; pms, Neuvi ) is a city and ''comune'' north of Genoa, in the Piedmont region of the province of Alessandria of northwest Italy. The town produces food, iron, steel, and textiles. It is an important junction for both ...

, a dozen kilometres from the old site. The company now covers a 10,000 square metre area, equipped with the most modern machines to work the wood as well as to mould the plastic. The new location employs over 60 people, both for the office and the factory.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official WebsiteGarlando Tables in Germany
* Garlando Foosball Table Review
Garlando Foosball Table Reviews
* Garlando Foosball Table in Russi
Garlando Foosball Table
Manufacturing companies established in 1954 Sporting goods manufacturers of Italy Novi Ligure Cue sports equipment manufacturers Table football Italian brands Italian companies established in 1954 Companies based in Piedmont