Minoli was founded in the 1940’s by Luigi Minoli, working with Marble and Terrazzo initially in London where the Minoli family was based and then moving to Oxford.
Minoli opened a purpose-built factory facility in the very early 1960’s in Cowley, Oxford. This factory produced terrazzo tiles and was the operational base for the company’s installation division then thriving, working on colleges, car showrooms, hospitals and domestic projects.
In the early 1960’s Luigi’s son Peter came to realise the potential not only for the Terrazzo tiles made on site but also for Mosaics and “normal” tiles. Whilst maintaining the Terrazzo business at its core, Peter Minoli worked to develop a business wholesaling tiles to local merchants, often delivering in the evenings, or whilst working with Terrazzo in the area.
Peter’s vision for tiles proved to be well founded and the tile side of the business very quickly took over completely from the Terrazzo production. Using contacts in Europe, predominately Italy, Peter built up a strong supply network from the newly emerging tile manufacturing companies, and many of the world’s leading tile manufacturers can trace Minoli to being virtually their first export client. Some of these relationships remain in place to this day.
By the time Peter’s son, Jonathon was born in 1968, the company was very nearly 100% tile, with a fast-growing network of clients including tile studios, kitchen and bathroom showrooms, house builders & developers and car dealerships, who had moved from Terrazzo to tiles for their showrooms and workshops. Minoli had now built a second building on the site and continued to expand its staff and fleet of delivery trucks.
Peter built the company up over many years, making Minoli one of the founding companies within a fast-growing industry of tile distribution. Minoli became renowned for high quality tile, mosaic and stone, competitive pricing and service that was simply second to none.
Unfortunately, in 1994 Peter died aged just 55, leaving the company in a very strong position but without the founding force that had built up client base and supply chain. Peter’s wife Kate and his children who were all very much involved with the business took up the running of the company and decided to invest in new stock, showrooms and warehousing, not only to help take the company forward but also to mark Peter’s passing with something solid. To this day a plaque in the reception subtly reminds visitors of Peter and his tremendous contribution to creating the company it is today.
During the 1990’s and well into the new millennium Minoli has continued to expand, but very much organically with the completion of the new warehouse and showroom facility in the Autumn of 1996 and then a further, much larger development in 2002 and 2003, creating far more storage, marketing and administration space. All purpose-built, with showrooms designed and built by Carmalasa, Minoli has one of the finest and most professional tile supply facilities in the United Kingdom.
As the company’s capacity and capabilities increased, the opportunity to better serve professional and residential clients across the Capital and South-East became apparent and 2013 saw the opening of a new premises for Minoli, called The Surface Within, in the heart of London’s West End. The London operation has become a logical extension to the existing Oxford-based operation, and having the showroom, meeting spaces and resource centre means we can offer the same excellent levels of customer service in the very heart of London as well.
Since marking the company’s 60th anniversary, we’ve continued to invest and expand having opened our new factory outlet in 2020, doubled the size of our Oxford site and our stockholding has reached near £3 million in net cost value stock.
Between our Oxfordshire headquarters and London showroom our team extends to well over 40 people and we now run 11 purpose-built trucks and numerous vans as we continually increase our delivery capacity, whilst striving to improve efficiency and minimise our environmental impact.
Successfully trading for over sixty years, Minoli is still family run, with Jonathon Minoli as Managing Director, assisted by a team of experienced and professional people, many of whom have now worked with three generations of the family, Luigi Minoli, Peter & Kate Minoli and now Jonathon.