18 INTERVIEW
historical project. Geographically, it allows us to have very good routes for transportation. There is also a great harbour, and a large chemical centre, a hub. This new facility is an
oleochemical plant only, so it will manufacture lipid excipients both for the personal care and pharmaceutical industries for the Americas market - North and South America. We see growth coming from the US both for personal care and pharmaceuticals. We already have a production
line in Singapore, Asia, it makes sense for us to have something in the US. The second stage of the US project will be to export and have those materials to be shipped everywhere in the world. Our main production site
is in France, we also have a production line in Spain. Texas is industrial expansion, which is one of our three strategic pillars.
TP: What are your other two strategic pillars? SMG: Industrial expansion is one. Second is innovation. And third is geographical expansion. We are present through distribution affiliates and production affiliates in 12 countries, we also work with quite a large number of distributors in 70 to 80 countries where we not operate directly. We are looking at opportunities to have a direct setup in other countries beyond those 12 countries.
TP: What are you strategic plans in terms of personal care products? SMG: Our lipid chemistry expertise allows us to make lipid excipients for personal care and pharmaceutical ingredients and we intend to keep concentrating on those areas, as well as natural texturising agents and natural, efficient actives for personal care. In terms of excipients
and texturising agents, it has broadened massively in recent years because we were mostly focusing on skincare. We are widening our scope to colour cosmetics as well as sun care. We have witnessed great interest among our customers for those particular areas of formulation. We see also that our
sustainable and biodegradable ingredients fit perfectly with consumers’ desires for having a more natural type of product. We do this while keeping a strong
PERSONAL CARE September 2022
“Sustainability is a state of mind, it’s a philosophy from start to the end. You can’t say I want this business to be sustainable and not
have sustainable products.” Ségolène Moyrand-Gros, president of Gattefossé
competency on the sensory profiles of those products. Sensory analysis is an area of expertise that we developed long ago. It was 1996 when we set up the first internal panel of sensory analysis at Gattefossé.
TP: Where’s the cutting edge for these personal care products? Where are you pushing the boundaries in terms of innovation? SMG: In terms of actives, we see that there is a shift towards skin health - actives that address not only the visible signs of skin damage but also invisible skin damage. As for excipients, we see that sensory ingredients must bring significant clinical benefits. They have to be tested and demonstrated, which is great, because this is also an area of focus for us for quite some time now.
TP: Other than physical expansion and product innovation, how else will you keep ahead in what is a very competitive personal care marketplace? SMG: We see quite a lot of dynamic growth in both the US and the Asian markets. We know that China is the number one market when it comes to exports and all our customers want to enter the Chinese market. We keep a very close look at
consumption trends in China. This is through our Chinese affiliate where we have an application lab, which makes it easier for us to enter into this market. We have formulators that can adapt whatever we do in France to Chinese local needs.
The second thing is we also
are strong in natural cosmetics, because everything that we do we innovate through natural compositions. We have recently developed a tool to make sure we have good traceability of our raw materials.
This has become sort of
mandatory to develop a new cosmetic product. We are really paying a lot of attention to this. And luckily, those natural cosmetics that we develop also have quite a lot of success in China.
TP: Is there much difference between what consumers in China want from consumers in France or other countries in Europe? SMG: Well, until recently, China was pretty much into efficiency, having high-efficient actives. It’s still the case, but we see a change and a lot of customer requests for sustainability, natural products, biodegradable products. I would say it’s becoming more and more synchronised.
TP: They are catching up with the rest of the world, perhaps? SMG: Yes. India is also changing. India was very much a low-cost market. Customers are more into having access to sustainable cosmetics and the local brands are willing to purchase more natural actives. It’s interesting to see how fast it’s moving.
TP: What are the coming trends in Europe? SMG: Upcycling is one. It’s not only just about being sustainable,
you have to have something more to bring to the market and to add value to your product. There is also demand for
products that provide additional benefits for the consumer - not just a superficial product to make you glow and feel beautiful. You want to feel it from the inside. Skin microbiome actives are more and more requested, that they can bring to market a product that has an action on the ‘whole’ person. This is about biotechnologies.
TP: What keeps you up at night in terms of the big picture, such as regulation, sustainability, fossil fuels and so on? SMG: We have a strong corporate social responsibility and environmental programme. It’s not just about producing an organic raw material and that’s it. The whole process has to be looked into so that you have a lower carbon footprint, you use less water to make your products et cetera. This is why Gattefossé had been
one of the first companies to be part of the ERI (Eco Responsible Ingredient) 360° Label. This looks into the whole cycle of the product, like from where it’s been made, collected, how it is produced, how it is transported et cetera. We have just have received the
results for three of our ingredients and we see it’s more and more difficult to fit into those criteria. That makes sense, but it means that we really do have some efforts to make sure that the production processes, and the whole supply chain processes, comply with those new standards. Yes, it keeps me up at night,
because I really want to make sure that we offer ingredients that are not just the cosmetic, you know, but something that is true, authentic. It’s becoming more and more difficult.
TP: I imagine it will only become more difficult in time. So how do you manage, what do you do? SMG: Well, this is why we have strong choices when it comes to innovation. Sometimes we just have to say, no, we won’t take this one because the sourcing is not right. It could also be we have to stop the production of one of our materials if we can’t prove that it brings something of value to the market. It may mean sometimes adding
to our cost, or that we are going to lose some market share. But in the
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