Rising sales at Los Altos Foods in City of Industry, CA required the family-owned Hispanic cheese company to invest in additional manufacturing space along with redevelopment of existing space to meet their growing production needs. While combining 3 separate manufacturing plants into a single facility, Los Altos Foods also transformed previous operational areas into 30,000 square feet of lobby and management offices which included porcelain floor tile from Emser Tile®.
Knowing that this flooring project would require multiple tile installation products, McCandless Tile of Santa Ana worked with Custom® Building Products’ Territory Manager Devin Dickey to specify the proper products and to develop an installation systems warranty that gives Los Altos Foods the assurance that their installation will not fail.

The existing concrete slab had cracks, so more than 110 buckets of RedGard® Waterproofing and Anti-Fracture Membrane were used to coat the surface and to isolate the existing cracks and any new ones that may develop.

McCandless Tile installed 13” x 13” and 21” x 21” porcelain tile with Custom’s polymer-modified VersaBond® Flex Fortified Thin-Set Mortar – which is ideal for setting porcelain because of its flexibility and bond strength. The tile was grouted with Polyblend® Grout to ensure color consistency and dense, hard grout joints. After curing, the grout was sealed with Aqua Mix® Sealer’s Choice Gold - the best selling sealer from North America’s most preferred sealer brand.

“Choosing a single-source supplier for installation products is critical to ensure that the system is solid – I won’t have any product or warranty problems”, noted Mark McCandless, “Devin at Custom is the one call I place for system installations”.-Ryan Brausa, Product Manager


Project:Los Altos Foods, Industry CA
Tile and Installation Products Distributor:Emser Tile, Anaheim CA
Tile Contractor:McCandless Tile, Santa Ana CA
McCandless Tile Foreman:Mark McCandless
Tile Installation Products Manufacturer:Custom Building Products
Custom Territory Manager:Devin Dickey
System Warranted Products:RedGard Waterproofing and Anti-Fracture Membrane, VersaBond® Flex Fortified Thin-Set Mortar, Polyblend Grout