MINNEAPOLIS — For Tennant Co., tap water may become gold.
The 139-year-old Golden Valley, Minn., company, known for selling floor-cleaning machines that can cost $10,000 to $25,000, is using a new technology that electrically converts water into a super-cleanser.
Some longstanding industrial customers are already using the groundbreaking technology. And in the current environmentally conscious era, Tennant is hoping the chemical-free cleaning will generate hundreds of millions in new sales as it expands its customer base and converts businesses to the new technology.
For Tennant, a revenue boost couldn’t come quickly enough. The recession has taken its toll, with revenue falling 24 percent in the first quarter. It’s expecting sales for the year will be down at least $100 million from 2008.
“We’re in the middle of trying to transform the company from being a floor- cleaning company to being an environmental cleaning solutions company,” said Chris Killingstad, Tennant’s chief executive. He didn’t offer estimates but said chemical-free cleaning products will help Tennant become a much larger company.
“What we have discovered is a way to electrically convert plain tap water to perform like a powerful detergent,” said Killingstad, who joined the company in 2002.
“You can imagine when we went out there with this, people looked at it and said, ‘It can’t be true,’ ” Killingstad said. But Tennant introduced the new cleaning technology in commercial scrubber machines in May 2008 and gave some of its major customers machines to test the process.
“Seeing is believing,” he said.
The Target Center, home of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, is now cleaned with the new technology. On a recent weekday, a Tennant ride-on scrubber, filled with tap water, cleaned the floor at a noticeably quiet Nickelodeon amusement park at the Mall of America before it opened.
