Last month The Ratava Group team attended LabDay Chicago, which for the last thirty years has been held at the Sheraton Hotel on the river. LabDay Chicago is always a great show characterized by its basement setting and whirlwind nature. Over the years, the show in the Sheraton’s basement has become one of North America’s largest annual tradeshows drawing attendees from all over the globe!

Dental lab owners and technicians attend lab day to find solutions for their laboratory needs and to see the latest, most technologically advanced products on the market. This year at LabDay Chicago the hype was all about the multilayered PMMA and multilayered zirconia discs! There were several presentations at the show each day, which focused on different aspects of the dental laboratory business. The Ratava Group delivered an educational presentation on the uses, profitability, and residual business that can be achieved with high translucent PMMA on behalf of Merz Dental.

RG was really hoping to announce the acquisition of Health Canada Approval and Certification for their line of Chrome Cobalt and Grade 5 Titanium CAD/CAM discs, but the approval was not available in time for the show. RG is really hoping the tedious process of obtaining Health Canada Certification will be over soon, so that Canadian Dental Labs and milling centers can have more options when it comes to milling non-precious metals. RG may not have been able to announce Health Canada Approval at the show, but they were able to expand their offerings for long-lasting milling machine tools!

In the evenings after the show exhibitors and attendees gathered, as always, at the Sheraton Chicago Chi Bar to catch up with colleagues and for more CAD/CAM talk. RG attended the CAP (Custom Automated Prosthetics) happy hour in the Colorado room and had the opportunity to meet a few really great technicians and dental laboratory owners and discuss the latest products and trends in digital dentistry. RG also had a chance to meet with Glenn with Roland DGA who is an expert on the milling machines. It is always great to catch up with the Roland team!

After attending the happy hour on Friday evening, RG had dinner at Howell’s and Hood on N. Michigan Avenue with the Delcam team, as well as the representatives from RG’s German manufacturers, Merz Dental and Doceram Medical Ceramics. The freshly-tapped Chicago-brewed beer paired well with gigantic cheeseburgers!

A trip to the Windy City is never complete without deep-dish pizza! RG concluded LabDay Chicago on Saturday evening by attending a meet and greet at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria hosted by Datron. Datrons are advanced, high-tech milling machines, so it was great to have the chance to talk with the Datron team. RG also had the opportunity to meet the owner of iMilling, who has several milling machines, including a Datron, and to get his perspective on the various machines and millable materials.

As always, LabDay Chicago was fun, fast-paced, and really productive. RG is looking forward to exhibiting at LabDay Chicago again in 2015!

RG’s goal and philosophy is to make getting high quality, German-made products into the hands of skilled technicians faster and easier and to provide the best customer service possible. Since its founding in 2011, RG’s product line and business have grown based on customer demand to become the North American Distributor for five German manufacturers of CAD/CAM products. What began as a zirconia provider, has evolved into a distributorship for everything from zirconia and sintering accessories to non-precious metals to PMMA, wax, and milling machine tools!

To better serve and accommodate RG’s ever-growing customer needs, RG has relocated to a new, larger office and warehouse space. “RG is passionate about great products and unbeatable customer service. I believe this new location will allow our team to continue to grow and maintain the great level of service that we already provide to our happy milling customers!” Says The Ratava Group President, Allison Raver.

The Ratava Group is based in Tampa, Florida and can be reached at:

The Ratava Group
3614 West Cypress Street
Tampa, FL 33607

Direct Office: 813-877-6455
Toll-Free: 855-472-8282

 

While most of the United States recovered from turkey and shopping overdoses, The Ratava Group and the dental world prepared for one of the world’s largest dental tradeshows of the year: The Greater New York Dental Meeting (GNYDM). GNYDM is traditionally a tradeshow for domestic and international dental product vendors, manufacturers, and dentists that takes place in the Jacob Javits Center in NYC. This year GNYDM added a new section to expand its attendee listing to include products and services for those in the dental laboratory industry.

RG loves NYC and to promote their innovative, high-quality products every chance they get, so RG decided to exhibit in the Collaboration section of the show, which was newly designed to promote products to dental laboratory owners, technicians, and students.

The booth was busy and the show was a SUCCESS! RG had the opportunity to connect with current customers, new customers, meet prospective customers, and see a lot of new products launch into the market, including multi-layered PMMA and multi-layered zirconia.

RG’s German manufacturers joined RG at the booth, traveling all the way from Dortmund, Woerth, and Luetjenburg, Germany! It is always great having the product experts from the manufacturing companies present at the booth! After the show, we visited La Pulperia in Hell’s Kitchen and had a great time! The food and service were amazing…not to our surprise…it is NYC, after all!

RG is planning to exhibit again in 2014 in the Collaboration portion of the GNYDM and continue to promote their current and new product offerings. RG is always adding new, innovative, and highly-demanded products to their product line!