“Do not lose hope even when you are at your wit’s end”

Made to measure for boutiques, yachts and villas – customers of Ruckstuhl AG, the carpet manufacturer based in Langenthal in the Canton of Bern, have high purchasing power. Private persons, embassies, museums, international fashion houses and watchmakers. Carpets for the executive floor so to speak. Adrian Berchtold prefers not to name his customers: “We are very discreet as far as our customers are concerned,” the CEO and proprietor with his perfect hairstyle comments. He just says that they include prominent showbiz personages.

Carpets that cost as much as a car

The weaving loom is rattling away in his production plant where our conversation takes place. A robot is just completing an order costing as much as a good mid-range car for a museum of art: two unique pieces with a diameter of several metres are being tufted. A female artist designed them. In the tufting technique, a gun is used to shoot yarn into the supporting surface.

A few metres further on a fork lift truck is picking up a newly made roll of carpet and transferring it to the neighbouring finished goods store: ceiling-high shelving filled with luxury carpets in taupe, blue-grey or ecru. Enough to cover several football pitches! A few weeks of craftsmanship and a substantial proportion of the company’s sales are stored here.

For instance, the price of a made-to-measure sisal carpet starts at around 2000 francs. There is no upper limit. The most expensive creations made so far run into five or even six figures.

Absorbing impressions like a sponge

Ruckstuhl manufactures mainly in Switzerland and sells all over the world. They use natural coconut, pure new wool, linen, sisal and wood fibres. The principal sales markets include Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Berchtold and his team find their inspiration everywhere, all the time. “At a design fair in Milan or on a journey through the Indian town of Varanasi – we absorb odours, colours and shapes like a sponge.” That is the source of exciting new design ideas.

Women at work on machines weighing tons

“An open corporate culture is important”, says Berchtold, who mentions he is gay without beating about the bush. People from twelve nations and of different generations work in his company. He does not just pay lip service to diversity. “We have an identical number of men and women. All our employees perform the same tasks, regardless of their gender”, he says looking across at the enormously heavy loom on which an older female employee wearing black gloves is tying down coconut fibre yarns as thick as a rope. “She has been with us since 1977. She is due to retire in two years’ time.”

The 38-year-old has been running the manufactory with Stefan Howald and Valentin Baumann since 2018. Baumann and he took the business over three years later. Berchtold started work here more than 20 years ago as an apprentice. He knows every component of his production machines, however small, every sequence and every turn. “I can even hear whether the loom is running smoothly”, he says. The machine now has 80 years under its belt!

From global group to startup structure

There is not much left of the original corporate structure which he got to know as an apprentice long ago. Partly because of the pandemic and to some extent intentionally the manufactory that had been founded in 1881 was downsized from a global group with subsidiaries in the USA, Paris and Milan and 90 employees to become an SME structured like a startup. Today there are 25 employees, mostly in Langenthal.

Sticking at it

Things had not always been going so smoothly for the two owners, Berchtold and Baumann as it might seem at first sight. Three years ago, the pandemic left him awake at night. Today the industry is facing uncertainty because of energy supply difficulties, the Ukraine conflict and a volatile market. But “In my short time as CEO I have learned not to lose hope even when I am at my wit’s end,” he says. He also tries to see challenges as opportunities. A word of advice that must surely apply to the whole industry.

“We satisfy every wish,” Berchtold says as he neatly adjusts his brown jacket. We also handle warehousing and logistics – from Australia to the Swiss Alps. “Once we even delivered a carpet by chair lift and gondola to a customer’s chalet,” he remembers.

Sticking at it

Things had not always been going so smoothly for the two owners, Berchtold and Baumann as it might seem at first sight. Three years ago, the pandemic left him awake at night. Today the industry is facing uncertainty because of energy supply difficulties, the Ukraine conflict and a volatile market. But “In my short time as CEO I have learned not to lose hope even when I am at my wit’s end,” he says. He also tries to see challenges as opportunities. A word of advice that must surely apply to the whole industry.