Flooring

Which flooring for a supermarket? Five zones, from the sales area to the warehouse with the pallet trucks

Last updated: 28 October 2026

Five zones, five specifications: sales, wet areas, preparation rooms, cold stores and a warehouse with pallet trucks, with refurbishment carried out without clo

The system at a glance

Solutions & Applications · Food Shops

A supermarket doesn’t have just one floor — it has five. The sales area, wet areas, preparation rooms, cold stores and service aisles with pallet trucks operate under completely different conditions, and applying a single standard to everything is the surest way to get half of it wrong.

Five zones, five requirements

Zone	Dominant stress	Critical property
Sales area	Trolleys, pallet trolleys for supplies, continuous movement	Load-bearing capacity and abrasion resistance; suitability for partial refurbishment
Wet areas & greengrocer’s	Water on the floor, damp from sprinkler systems	Slip resistance
Preparation centres & workshops	Contact with foodstuffs, fats, acids; washing with disinfectants	Chemical inertness, watertightness, ease of disinfection
Cold rooms	Low temperatures, condensation, heavy loads	Resistance to thermal stress and impact
Storage, service corridors & loading/unloading	Electric pallet trucks, forklifts, point loads on pallets	Thick wear layer, corridor markings, replacement without disruption

The sales area: the shop does not close

The greatest technical challenge in refurbishing a supermarket is not the materials — it is that the business remains open. The flooring is replaced in shifts, aisle by aisle, with the shop remaining open the following day.

This systematically favours modular, interlocking and loose-lay systems over bonded rolls:

iD TILT: Interlocking vinyl tiles, 664 × 664 mm, adhesive-free and joint-free — a seamless surface that is easy to clean. Wear layer 0.70 mm, Class 34 Very Heavy, R10, 11 designs in cement, stone, metal and wood finishes. Each tile can be replaced individually.
TILT HIT: The industrial version — a wear layer of 2.70 mm, almost four times that of a commercial-grade LVT. Can be laid over most existing floors without the need for removal; suitable for retail aisles with continuous restocking by pallet trucks.
iD CLASSICS Loose-Lay 55: 4.5 mm LVT weighing 7.8 kg/m², which stays in place under its own weight, without the need for permanent adhesive; 30 designs in oak, stone, concrete and metal. No curing time required, so the corridor is ready for the next shift.
iD NATURALS CLICK ULTIMATE 55: Rigid Click with GenClick®, laid over existing tiles — for delicatessens, wine shops and retail outlets seeking a marble, terrazzo or wide-plank look.
iD CLASSICS Glue-Down 70: Adhesive-backed LVT with a wear layer of 0.70 mm and a residual indentation of ≤ 0.05 mm, for areas with the heaviest footfall — entrances, cash desks, main corridors.
VENETO xf² 2.5 mm: Linseed oil for shops that promote natural materials and sustainability.

Where full-surface bonding is chosen, Ceresit UK 400 is suitable for homogeneous and heterogeneous vinyl, linoleum and fabric floor coverings, and can also be used over underfloor heating systems.

ARGYNET Note

Two different things are often confused. The way in which a floor is fixed without adhesive — by its own weight, by interlocking or by the underside — relates to its connection to the substrate and says nothing about whether the sole of the foot slips on the visible surface. Surface slip resistance is a distinct, categorised property.

And this is not a characteristic of the collection as a whole, but of the specific product reference. Within the same product family, standard and non-slip versions co-exist, with different classifications and different product codes. In wet areas, the class is explicitly requested in the tender and confirmed by the technical data sheet — it is not inferred from the name of the collection.

At ARGYNET, we draw up specifications by shop area and calculate materials per m².

Behind the shelves: pallet trucks, warehouse, loading and unloading

The client does not see the service corridors, but that is where the flooring is subjected to the greatest wear and tear: electric pallet trucks, trolleys laden with crates, and pallets being leaned against the floor and dragged along. The usual solution is industrial resin — which requires sanding, priming and curing, meaning the warehouse is out of operation for days.

TILT HIT is the alternative when there is no time:

Feature	iD TILT	TILT HIT
Wear layer / thickness	0.70 mm / 5 mm	2.70 mm / 6 mm
Category of use	34 Very Heavy · 43 Heavy	34 Very Heavy · 43 Heavy
Tile	664 × 664 mm	645 × 645 mm
Joint strength	≥ 50 N/50 mm	≥ 100 N/50 mm
Chemical resistance	Good	Not affected
Drawings	11 finishes in wood, concrete and stone	10 chip patterns + yellow and blue markings
Slip resistance / fire	R10 · Bfl-s1	R10 · Bfl-s1
Where it fits	Retail outlet, delicatessen, café	Warehouse, service aisles, loading, sales aisles with pallet trucks

The yellow and blue TILT HIT tiles demarcate traffic lanes, pallet truck parking areas and safety zones without the need for painting — and when the layout of the racks changes, the markings move with them, tile by tile.

ARGYNET Note

The interlocking tile is flexible: it conforms to any irregularities in the substrate, and where it ‘rests’ on a void, the connection with the first pallet-bearing tile opens up. Broken or uneven areas must be repaired first. For specific loads from forklift trucks or shelving, suitability must be confirmed with the manufacturer prior to quotation.

The substrate: fully loaded gondolas

Supermarket shelving supports very heavy loads at small support points, permanently and at the same location. The substrate must be able to support this without deformation — and, for adhesive-free systems, it must be level.

CERESIT DH Maxi is a self-levelling compound with a thickness of 3 to 30 mm, designed for very heavy loads and professional use, with a particularly smooth finish. It is applied to concrete, cement screeds and aerated concrete with a strength of at least C12, and can be applied by machine — a crucial factor when thousands of square metres need to be laid within a single project.

Preparation rooms and cold rooms: this is where the material family changes

In bakeries, butchers’ shops and fishmongers’ shops, as well as in cold stores, no rubber flooring is the right solution. What is required is a continuous, impermeable surface that can be washed with disinfectants and comes into contact with food.

SINMAST RM 22 is a two-component, solvent-free, coloured epoxy paint:

Property	Performance
Food contact	Suitable for surfaces intended to come into contact with foodstuffs — food and drink
Microbial behaviour	In accordance with MIL-STD-810B Method 508, excellent resistance to the growth of bacteria and fungi
Waterproofing	Liquid-impermeable coating
Chemical resistance	Mild acids, lubricating oils, petrol, alcohols, salt solutions, alkaline and slightly acidic solutions
Exposure to water	Freshwater, seawater and distilled
Structural engineering	High hardness, abrasion and impact resistance
Substrates	Concrete, levelling compounds, polymer-modified mortars, timber, metals
Application temperature	From +8 °C — work can be carried out in a cold environment
Safety	Solvent-free, non-flammable

The last two lines address practical issues within the industry: application from +8 °C allows work to be carried out in a cold store without the temperature having to be fully restored, and the absence of solvents makes it possible to work in enclosed food processing areas without the risk of ignition or residual odours.

The insulation of the cold room itself — floor, walls, ceiling — is a separate study, with its own guide to the selection of materials.

The roof: noise and lighting costs

A supermarket is an acoustically challenging environment — refrigeration units running continuously, trolleys, public address announcements, and hard, reflective surfaces everywhere. At the same time, it is a space with very high lighting costs, as it operates for over fourteen hours a day across thousands of square metres.

OWA Constellation meets both requirements:

Sound absorption αw up to 0.80 — Class B.
Light reflectance ~88 per cent: fewer light fittings required to achieve the same level of illumination on the shelf. In a supermarket environment, this is an operational cost rather than a technical specification.
Moisture resistance up to 95 per cent RH: important above fruit and vegetable sections with misting systems and near refrigeration units.
Reaction to fire A2-s1,d0 in accordance with EN 13501-1.
Fire resistance of the system up to REI 180 in accordance with EN 13501-2, depending on the suspension system.

Design series

Zoning: sales area, wet areas, preparation areas, cold stores, storage and loading/unloading areas — with their boundaries shown on the plan.
Slip resistance requirements by zone: the specific class must be explicitly stated, not simply ‘slip-resistant’.
Loads: point loads from trolleys and refrigerators, and mobile loads from pallet trucks — these determine the wear layer and substrate.
Cleaning protocol: which disinfectants are actually used and at what concentration.
Work window: shifts, phasing, curing times — these determine the installation method before any other decision is made.
Markings: traffic routes and safety zones in the warehouse, integrated into the floor.
Ceiling: acoustic performance requirements, together with requirements for moisture and light reflection.