Glass-Ceramic Cooktop Panels

German glass technology company (HQ Mainz); one of the most unusual corporate structures in global manufacturing: SCHOTT AG is 100% owned by the Ernst-Abbe Stiftung — a non-profit foundation established by optical pioneer Ernst Abbe in Jena, 1889. The foundation channels profits to employee welfare and scientific research. SCHOTT invented CERAN® glass-ceramic cooktop panels in 1971; has sold over 200 million units; estimates 55% of global qualified glass-ceramic cooktop market. ALL CERAN glass is melted at the Mainz, Germany facility using a proprietary controlled crystallization process that converts lithium aluminosilicate glass into the distinctive black glass-ceramic. SCHOTT also produces: ZEISS optical glass (same Jena/Schott historical partnership), pharmaceutical glass vials and syringes (world's largest producer), mirror blanks for the James Webb Space Telescope, and specialty glass for nuclear waste storage. A foundation-owned German company with no shareholders has ~55% of the global induction and electric cooktop glass market and also makes the largest telescope mirrors ever built.

50/50 joint venture between Saint-Gobain (France, world's largest building materials company) and Corning Incorporated (USA, world's leading specialty glass maker); produces Kerablack® and Keralite® glass-ceramic cooktop panels as the only competitor to SCHOTT CERAN at global scale. Claims to be the #1 choice of cooktop manufacturers for new designs; operates 5 global production facilities. The JV structure means every Eurokera glass-ceramic panel involves both Corning's glass technology and Saint-Gobain's distribution. Corning (same company as Gorilla Glass for smartphones and optical fiber for telecommunications) co-owns the only real competitor to SCHOTT's cooktop glass monopoly.