HAWKINSVILLE, Ga. — Hawkinsville has a reputation as a horse town.Every spring, the city hosts the harness racing festival.
But there is another company with an international claim to fame. It's a company that's cemented it's reputation around the world.
Co-owner Alexandre Burgand says Sider-Crete makes 250 products.
"Stucco pool products pool deck plasters and things of that nature," he rattled off.
They do specialty buildings as well like Natalia's in Macon and even the old Starcadia entertainment complex.
But they've also seen their concrete used on a much larger scale.
"We've done Disney in the U.S., we've done Disney in Europe, we've done other parks beside Disney, the house of Katmado in Spain, we've done Branson Missouri and Pigeon Forge Titanic the museums," he said.
"The grand magic is really the applicators and the carvers, it's their ability to carve that material that renders the final product."
So it all starts and comes together in the development room where kitchen mixers sit on stands ready to mix concrete. They also have numerous containers of colors lined up on the wall.
"It is like a bakery in here," he joked.
Color is key. "We have fifteen raw colors and up to now we've developed 65 hundred colors, he calculated.
To make a complicated process easy to digest, the materials get mixed and then ultimately bagged.
"We're making about two truckloads a day which is 80-thousand pounds of finished product," he said.
Sider-Crete came to Central Georgia more than 20 years ago..
"We export a good bit of material so Savannah Charleston and Jacksonville are close," Alexandre said.
And in a town with a population of about 5,000, Hawkinsville has a close-knit feel.
"Most of our employees have been with us 10 years and you know just a small hometown feel it's just friendlier to come to work everyday," he said with a smile.
Sider-Crete also has their material at the Belagio in Las Vegas.