Who We Are
We're a company with a really odd name... whose employees call each other "Piggers" or "Partners in Grime®." We create award-winning products to make your job easier... and we're absolutely, positively dedicated to helping our customers keep their facilities clean and safe. We know from experience that a clean, safe workplace is more productive.
Since 1985, New Pig has been providing innovative products and services to industrial, institutional and governmental facilities. We've grown into a multi-channel, multi-brand supplier of products designed specifically for leak and spill management, industrial safety and plant maintenance. Today, New Pig serves more than 200,000 customers in more than 70 countries.
What do we sell?
When New Pig invented the Original PIG® Absorbent Sock, the world's first contained absorbent, it revolutionized leak and spill control in the workplace. Today, we offer the largest selection of contained absorbents in the world: absorbent mats, socks, booms, pillows and pans. We also carry well known, proven products for material handling, personal protection, spill response, liquid filtration, maintenance, industrial wipers and workplace safety.
How can you buy from us?
We started our business with one of the most unique catalogs to ever hit your mailbox – the Pigalog®. Today, this award-winning catalog contains thousands of products guaranteed to help you keep your plant cleaner and safer. You can also obtain PIG® Products through select industrial and safety distributors and integrated suppliers, as well as many Safety-Kleen branches and government contractors.
- Call us at 1-800-HOT-HOGS® (468-4647)
- Visit us online at newpig.com
- Fax us at 1-800-621-PIGS (621-7447)
- By Mail: New Pig, One Pork Avenue, PO Box 304, Tipton, PA 16684-0304
- Submit your purchase order through Electronic Data Interchange
What makes us special?
What sets New Pig apart from the rest of the pack is our legendary customer service. Our Piggers know each of our products inside out, and they're standing by to help you. Have a technical question? No problem. Our Technical Services Department is ready to field your questions
New Pig's History
Getting started
According to the record books, New Pig was founded in the state of Pennsylvania in 1985. But the truth is, our roots extend back even further. In the late 1970's, we were a few not-so-ordinary folks trying to make a living operating an industrial contract cleaning and maintenance company. Many of the jobs involved going into manufacturing plants and factories to clean their tanks, pits, cranes, silos, ceilings, walls and floors.
We meet the enemy — and it's clay!
Our contract-cleaning precursor lost money on many of those jobs back then because our crews spent hours shoveling the loose, oil-soaked clay pellets (basically the same stuff that your cat uses!) that had been tossed around the bases of leaking machinery — a traditional solution going back decades in an attempt to gain a little traction. Not only was the loose clay a cleanup nightmare, but it also created an even bigger mess when it stuck to shoes and was tracked all through the plant and adjoining offices! Plus, dust from the clay would blow around and get into the moving parts of other machinery, causing even more problems. Not to mention the problem of disposal. There were mounds and mounds of clay to dispose of because it didn't absorb liquid... it merely became coated with it!
There had to be an easier, better way...
We knew there had to be a better way to soak up leaking, dripping oil—without the mess, damage and disposal headaches caused by clay. So we began to experiment.
First, we tried stuffing rags into the machines, then rolling them up and placing them around the bases of the machines. Nice try... but it didn't work too well. Then we put clay pellets inside the rags and placed them around the machine bases. Close... but not quite. We tried stuffing clay into a pair of basketball tube socks, but the sock material was too thick to absorb the oil fast enough. Getting closer... Finally, we took an old pair of pantyhose and filled it with clay. Better... the first sock that actually contained the leak or spill, but unfortunately, the socks required a lot of clay, making them just too heavy and cumbersome.
Although this prototype wasn't perfect, we knew they were on to something! We immediately hired a "research team" (two college students!) to further develop the product in a corner of our warehouse. Designated affectionately as "the Pig Pen," the research team began testing the absorption rate of many different materials. They poured waste oil on the floor, then tried to absorb it with an array of materials: ground-up diapers, newspaper, sawdust, sand, rice hulls and other unusual materials. None of them worked much better than clay.
Then, one day while cleaning walls and machinery at a local factory, an epiphany! Instead of using sand to blast grease and sludge off machines, we substituted ground corncobs, a less abrasive method of cleaning. As the ground corncobs accumulated on the floor, we discovered what we had been searching for — rapid liquid absorption! Within weeks the research lab produced a prototype — a nylon sock
The year was 1985. Far lighter and much more absorbent than clay, the PIG® Absorbent Sock was born.
Why the Pig Name?
The Pig Pen was aptly named. With round after round of experimentation and product testing in constant progress, it was always messy. In time, our absorbent socks, lying in pools of dirty oil, acquired the nickname "pigs" because they looked like they were wallowing in the stuff!
However, when it came time to trademark the product, we weren't sure that "pig" would be the best name for a new industrial maintenance product. After evaluating the word and the characteristics of the product, a large advertising agency advised, "Don't call your products, Pigs. Industry will never accept it." But our customers loved the nickname and so we took their advice instead. Continuing to disregard the advice of learned consultants, "Pig Corporation" was chosen as the corporate name. But when company co-founder Ben Stapelfeld went to register the name, he discovered that a Pennsylvania farmer had already registered the name "Pig Corporation." Undaunted, Ben simply added the word "new" at the beginning (a la "New England") to create "New Pig Corporation."