Mohiyuddin Ashfaq



Mohiyuddin Ashfaq, Director, MAK Plywood Industries, a leading timber trading and manufacturer of plywood in South India, discusses the company's highly successful 8-year-old premium plywood Trojan brand, new products in the pipeline, and its active expansion drive across the country, with Seema Gupta.


What makes Trojan plywood a premium product and eco-friendly too?
Trojan exemplifies how technology, quality, aesthetics, and customer needs blend together to form a product. The imported Gurjan and the home-grown Redgum, which are known for their density, quality, and natural resistance to termites and borers, are the only selected species of hardwood used to make Trojan plywood. Moreover, as an eco-responsible organization, MAK Plywood Industries sources wood from tropical plantations, which are renewable sources of raw material and, hence, do not damage our sensitive eco-system. Due to our sustainability and water/ energy conservation practices, Trojan has been given the Green Product certification.

What are the plywood's key features and application areas?
One key highlight of our Trojan premium products is their conformance to IS:710 specifications. Uniform strength, structural balance, pre-press technology, and the unique core-protection technology ensures that the products are resistant to termites and borers. In fact, our recently launched unique 'Lifetime Guarantee' card for all Trojan plywood products, offers replacement of plywood products with lifetime guarantee. Trojan products also have the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.

Trojan plywood is widely used for applications in interiors of residences and commercial places and for manufacturing furniture. We have products in various price ranges which cater to all market segments. Our premium range of Trojan Plywood is developed for customers looking for superior quality. The plywood is used in construction of high-end cabinetry, modular kitchen cabinets, fine furniture for homes and offices, and for designing exquisite interiors and wall claddings, etc. The product's resistance to moisture, boiling water, and termites makes it a favourite with reputed builders, architects, and interior designers.

Expansion into other segments of the plywood industry like veneers, laminates, MDF, and particle boards are additional ventures we are looking into.

When it comes to quality plywood, great tensile strength has to be coupled with incredible bonding qualities. We have an in-house resin manufacturing facility that makes the best synthetic resins - another key quality which the diligent interior designer seeks to ensure in his/her choice of plywood.

What are MAK Plywood Industries' manufacturing capabilities?
We are manufacturers of ISI certified plywood products with state-of-the-art facilities in Coimbatore and Mangalore. Our Mangalore-based plywood plant has undergone a huge facelift and we have installed the latest automated machinery such as pre-pressing technology with auto-loader, 8x4 feet peeling machines, wide-belt sander (with conveyor system), and an in-house resin plant. Film-faced shuttering plywood, flush doors and block boards are also some other products which our customers can expect from us. Plans are also afoot to manufacture Particle Board (PB) and MDF products in the near future. Work in this direction has already started. Our professional production team ensures that production quality is as per the standards of a premium product.

Mak Plywood Kitchen Image

MAK Plywood Industries has been in the business of manufacturing and trading of face veneer and branded plywood since 1982. Its flagship Trojan plywood brand counts amongst the most respected brands of plywood in south India

What opportunities/new markets does the company plan to tap in the near future?
We have always had a strong presence in South India from the beginning. In western India, we have a sales and marketing presence in Maharashtra, southern MP as well as Gujarat. Apart from our Mumbai office, we have regional offices in Cochin in Kerala, Mangalore and Bangalore in Karnataka, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, and Coimbatore and Chennai in Tamil Nadu. We have recently started our sales and marketing operations in West Bengal and in Odisha in the eastern part of India, with warehouses and regional offices in Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar.

Our recent presence and growth in the east has also opened up sales opportunities for us in Bihar and Jharkhand. We are also in the process of actively planning a production unit in Uttar Pradesh so as to cater to the whole of northern markets as well, thereby taking Trojan into the truly pan-India category of plywood manufacturers in the organized sector. Expansion into other segments of the plywood industry like veneers, laminates, MDF, and particle boards are additional ventures we are looking into, so as to enable Trojan to cater to its original vision of a total interior furnishings solution provider, without compromising on quality standards.