Uniwork, one of OverTeak’s leading brands in the safety footwear market, confirms its growth trend. The group from Barletta operates worldwide with its own factories in Italy and abroad
Afew words to identify a winning brand with an eye to the future: comfort and performance with style. This could be the business card of Uniwork, one of the main brands of OverTeak of Barletta, a leading group in the safety footwear market. The group from Puglia operates worldwide with its own factories in Italy and abroad and well supported by international suppliers. The brand, founded in 1996, offers a wide range of styles, including those in the urban, runner or trainer genre or in fabric derived from PET recycled from plastic bottles (GreenPET) or made specifically for women’s feet (Madame line). All these styles, according to their specific characteristics, aim to enhance the value of people by protecting workers and the companies in which they operate.
Uniwork professional safety footwear is suitable for a wide range of uses, avoiding possible risks to workers such as injuries, electrocution, burns and contact with hazardous chemicals, as well as preventing pain, twisting and slipping; they also absorb shocks and reduce fatigue. Having a fundamental impact as protective wear for individuals, it is important that they have the right characteristics to guarantee protection and support in a balanced measure for every need during work in potentially dangerous environments. For foot safety: it is precisely around this ‘mission’ that the footwear is produced on a daily basis and then ends up on the Italian and foreign markets, where the numbers confirm the growth trend.
To know more about the planning and commercial challenges that await this brand in 2023 and beyond, we met OverTeak’s CEO Giuseppe Vitobello at the Barletta headquarters and asked him about the strategies implemented by Uniwork. ‘The company vision,’ Vitobello explains, ‘puts us in a position to operate at 360 degrees, effectively orienting our presence towards four defined causes: responding to the safety needs of users; contributing to the growth of territorial economies and local economic operators; developing the principles of responsibility and safety in the workplace; and promoting and participating in business development.
What in particular characterizes the products in your range?
“In addition to ensuring the greatest possible safety in the workplace, in terms of comfort we are designing and producing increasingly comfortable lasts and shoes. The starting point is that an employee wears a safety shoe for a minimum of 8 hours. In reality, especially in Northern European countries, this time is extended even further as the average worker continues to wear the same shoes even after the work shift is over, perhaps going with colleagues or friends for a drink. So while safety and aesthetics are important aspects, feeling good is just as much a priority, hence the need to create ever more comfortable models. Design, fashion and comfort must go hand in hand.
What are the main innovations from a technological point of view?
“We are constantly in evolution, constantly ‘in progress’ from one day to the next there are always new projects to be studied and launched on the market. The safety footwear sector is one of the most evolving, especially in terms of materials, aesthetics and design. Nowadays, footwear is made so high-performance and attractive that it is difficult to distinguish it from all the others. Added to this is the fact that aspects of breathability and overall performance have improved considerably.
In the area of safety, what are the latest trends?
“This sector is also constantly evolving, just think of the increasingly high- performance and safe toe caps. Steel is still used but we are moving towards the composite toe cap. Many of our models use the Unicomp toe cap made of stainless, non-magnetic, recyclable technical polymer without epoxy paint and with an impact resistance of 200 joules. There is also some demand for carbon fibre, but it has the disadvantage of being a very expensive basic component: we have it in our range, but like all great innovations it will take time. As far as insoles are concerned, steel foil is also being used less and less in favoured, at least as far as our products are concerned, of the Armatek 0+ puncture-resistant foil, which is completely recyclable, thermoregulating, antistatic, and free of coatings and additives. Overall, they are all very high performance products’.
Your company was among the first to obtain the highest European quality certifications…
“We have long had, among others, Iso 9001, Iso 14001 and SA8000, the latter representing the Management System for Social Responsibility, in order of time it is the latest, acquired 4 years ago. This obliges us to comply with very strict parameters, but if we want to be on the market at a ‘top’ level, it is now an obligation to meet certain requirements. Many European countries are further ahead than Italy on the Green side, but international clients, particularly multinationals and large groups, demand that those who work with them are able to respect precise parameters, both at an environmental level and under the ethical aspect guaranteed by SA8000. We are able to meet these demands’.
How is your environmental commitment described?
“It has long been a strict company policy, implemented in the not too distant past, when no one was talking about sustainability and energy costs. For example, the self-production of electricity, a strategy that began 12 years ago; we can say with a touch of pride that we were ahead of our time. During the first half of 2023, a further expansion of the in-house plant at our headquarters is planned, with a further 150 kilowatts at our disposal, bringing the total to almost 600 kilowatts. Over the past decade we have equipped ourselves with modern injection moulding machines that have significantly reduced consumption and emissions, as well as using environmentally friendly materials, such as the release agent on polyurethane, which is water-based. The last year has been characterized by an ever-increasing demand for Green products, a strategy we chose early on, when we started to implement a whole series of productions, including uppers in recyclable and eco-friendly fabrics”.
From a commercial point of view, which areas of the world do you focus on the most?
“Europe continues to be predominant in our foreign portfolio, we are well present in Eastern and Mediterranean countries. We are in a development phase, the aim is to expand into other non-European countries and a little bit in all continents, especially areas where there are good margins for development. Between 2023 and 2024 we will be present, as usual, at the A+A trade fair in Düsseldorf, at the Paris trade fair, among the largest international trade fairs specializing in workplace and personal safety and occupational medicine, as well as at the Bergamo and DUBAI trade fairs’.
