a 95-year legacy of quality and innovation

A family-owned business located in the historic mill town of Sanford, Maine, Genest has over 95 years of experience designing, developing, and manufacturing some of the most beautiful and durable concrete products available in New England. Our state-of-the-art finished concrete products exceed the highest standards for strength and durability, making it possible for you to construct high profile commercial projects that will meet the demands of the active New England climate and continue to perform as designed for years to come.

Genest began serving the construction industry in 1927, when Hermangilde Genest purchased land in Sanford, Maine and began selling sand and gravel to local builders. His son Gerard soon joined him and began crafting hand-pressed concrete blocks, building the company into one of New England’s largest manufacturers and distributors of masonry products for the building trade.

Today, Genest remains a Maine-based, family-owned business as the third generation and fourth generation of Genests sustain the company’s mission of offering quality products, exceptional service, and outstanding value while pursuing cutting-edge technology and scientific research to reshape the future of the concrete industry. Our rigorous testing processes, which greatly exceed the mandated industry standards, ensure that our customers receive products of exceptional quality that are built to last. Through our research and development capabilities, we continue to explore what’s next, new and innovative, giving our customers access to the latest designs and materials and helping to pave the way for more resilient building design and more sustainable concrete masonry manufacturing and construction.

Genest’s focus on improving architectural concrete offerings and addressing the needs of our rapidly changing world has made us one of the most innovative companies in the industry. With Comfort Block, Genest is the first and only company in the U.S. to offer a concrete block system ground to such precise dimensions that it can be assembled using only masonry adhesive.

Available with up to three layers of internally integrated insulation and designed to replace standard block and mortar for faster and more efficient construction, Comfort Block makes it easy to construct ultra-efficient, highly resilient concrete buildings and landscaping features with less labor and less waste of materials. Comfort Block is also made with a lightweight, low-carbon concrete mix incorporating as much recycled material as possible. The Comfort Block building systems have given a new generation of architects and builders the ability to construct extremely durable and energyefficient concrete buildings with less impact on the environment at every stage — beginning with the manufacturing process and continuing throughout construction and occupancy.

Genest is an industry leader in manufacturing low-carbon concrete. Our low carbon formula, G-mix®, uses up to 55% recycled content and half of the cement traditionally used to produce concrete blocks and paving stones while exceeding ASTM specification requirements. G-mix® was developed using proven methods of CO2 reduction with quantifiable, verifiable results. The cradle-to-gate environmental impact of G-mix® has been third-party tested and ASTM-verified, and the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of our products is among the lowest in the industry. Our Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), published by ASTM, provide detailed information regarding the environmental impact of our extraction, transport, and manufacturing processes.