Category: News

Greatly appreciated by the leading fragrance producers, the absolute is the extract of the fresh raw material of plant origin that is part of the composition of the most highly-regarded perfumes.

Production of the absolute requires enormous quantities of raw material: for example in general more than 600 kg of jasmine flowers for one kilogram of absolute.

This high degree of concentration makes the kilogram of absolute extremely expensive: more than €70,000 for a kilo of jasmine flower absolute.

Numerous operations are required to extract the absolute from the natural materials. The flowers macerate in vats with a solvent so as to extract the aromatic molecules. When the solvent is saturated with fragrant principles it is filtered and then evaporated to produce a pomade known as a concrete. The concrete must then be washed in alcohol and cold-filtered to remove waxy materials. Finally the alcohol is evaporated, and what remains is the absolute.

This process is now well understood but nevertheless requires complex high-performance equipment with good long-term reliability, such as the systems produced by TOURNAIRE in Grasse since 1833.

As the only player in the market capable of designing and delivering a complete turnkey production process, TOURNAIRE is able to customize all its equipment to fully satisfy its customers’ needs and provide a complete service.

With more than 3,000 units in operation all over the world, TOURNAIRE is committed to producing the best for its clients and protecting the excellence of their products with the fullest and most secure range of packaging on the market.

 

 

 

For more information contact the experts of TOURNAIRE’s Equipment Division (private-newround.net/clients/tournaire/wp/en).

Emmanuel Macron visits Tournaire: “You are a good example!” 

 “You are a good example”, these are the very words that the French Minister of Economics, Industry, and Digital Technology, Emmanuel Macron, have bestowed upon Tournaire during his visit on Industry Week 2016. He was also able to discover the enterprise and visit the premises along with high school students and job-seekers within local missions.

For more informations regarding this unforgettable day, please find below the list of press articles and TV channels which have featured the minister’s visit:

 

Press Articles:

La Tribune Bulletin Côte d’Azur 

La Tribune Bulletin Côte d’Azur

Boursier.com

La Tribune Aix-Marseille

 

TV:

France 3 Côte d’Azur 

Azur TV

 

What are the two words that best represent Tournaire?

• The two words that come spontaneously to my mind are ‘boldness’ and ‘innovation’

 

In what respect is Tournaire a ‘bold’ company?

• Tournaire has been a family company ever since it was founded in 1833. It still is today, but at the same time it can intervene on behalf of clients all over the world, since 2/3 of our annual sales (in all, 56 million euros in 2014) were to international clients established in more than 70 countries in the six continents. Our boldness lies in our ability to get the best of both worlds: as a family company we can make strategic choices in a self-sufficient and totally independent way, but we also have the will to go beyond the geographical boundaries of our origins and set out, without reservations, to conquer international markets
• I believe our boldness is also visible in our ability to take a fresh look at ourselves, and in our desire to continue to expand the limits of our expertise despite our two hundred years of history: this has happened several times in the life of the company: in 1930, when Tournaire first made estagnons (containers) in one-piece aluminium; in 1950 when we expanded into the pharmaceutical and agrochemical markets; in 1961 with the design of the first floating-filter extractor in response to the needs of our client Tombarel, a perfume producer in Grasse… Finally, in order to better meet the needs of a constantly changing market we have, over the last few months, been performing an audit of our Equipment Division that has led to a total rethink of our development strategy for this line of business with a budget of more than 3 million euros. (Maggy, lien vers interview récente de F Bardini). From today this Division will be more than ever a pro-active player in its market, on the alert, attentive to the new trends and ceaseless changes so as to be a dynamic, adaptable and efficient partner.
• Another example of boldness comes to my mind: this is the ambitious plan we have set up over the last few years to manage effectively the skills and know-how of our employees. On one hand we have Tournaire’s own in-house academy, founded in 2009: its aim is to pass on know-how, promote employee development, provide access to the various levels of professional qualification and protect jobs. Beyond this, the ambition of this structure is to adapt jobs to the new economic and industrial situation. In this respect our company with its payroll of 250 is every bit as good as much larger groups which generally have much greater resources available. (lien vers https://www.tournaire.fr/le-groupe/developpement-durable/gestion-des-competences-des-emplois-et-des-savoirs/ ) For in Tournaire we have always believed that the true value of a company lies in the men and women of talent working for it. We therefore attach enormous importance to the selection and recruitment of candidates, their training, their career development and the quality of their lifestyle with us, since contented employees are an essential foundation on which to build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

 

And what about innovation? In what ways is Tournaire innovative?

• Our pioneering spirit and capacity for innovation are inseparable from the name of Tournaire; they are essential for a company like ours, they are part of our culture and have been built into our DNA generation after generation. To move on from our historic market with the perfume producers in Grasse to working for other sectors like food production, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, agriculture or animal health, we had to think, innovate, move forward, unceasingly test and refine our equipment; similarly to diversify from equipment to packaging we started from our existing knowledge and expertise and tested numerous materials, assessing their respective qualities, before choosing 99.5 per cent pure aluminum or co-extruded plastic for our packaging. Today Tournaire offers the widest range of technical packaging on the market, enabling us to respond to all demands, however complex they may be.
• In this field of R&D and innovation, the goals for our teams are clearly identified: for the Equipment Division the aim is to contribute to the implementation of the most innovative solutions in the fields of extraction, distillation and rectification, in full compliance with the ever-changing regulatory constraints. Our Equipment Division is constantly adapting its offering to follow the changing environments and industrial constraints of our clients so as to be closer to their everyday needs; the future of this Division also depends on the intensification of processes through technical and industrial partnerships so as to develop new innovations precisely adapted to its clients’ needs. For the Packaging Division the goal is the continuing improvement of the robustness, lightness, ergonomics and recyclability of our technical packaging, the improvement of the barrier function of the packaging, taking into account, when necessary, the presence of a complex environment (lien vers : https://www.tournaire.fr/le-groupe/recherche-developpement/), the specification and improvement of cleanliness, and the design of closure systems that are still better and easier to use for our clients.  
• During our history we have taken out many industrial patents to protect our inventions, which have become benchmarks in our markets. To mention just a few: the first System Plus® tamper-proof screw-cap designed by Jean Tournaire in 1978; in 1996, a patent for the first compact condensation, decantation and storage column for the pharmaceutical sector; in 2005 a patent for the GPI seal; in 2010 a patent for the granule dispensing cap, etc.
• One last example of our capacity for innovation: in 2014, Tournaire became one of the first companies in Grasse to be strongly present on web 2.0 and take advantage of all its functions: a completely revamped web site (private-newround.net/clients/tournaire/wp), now available in 3 languages (French, English, Spanish), the professional ‘Process & Materials’ blog, on which you are reading this article, the creation of a powerful digital ecosystem with interconnections between the web site, the blog and all the accounts and pages on the social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Youtube and Google+. Our employees have also been made fully aware of this significant digital evolution. Thus Tournaire’s digital transformation is shared and fostered by all employees who so desire.

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Thanks to these two strong values, boldness and innovation, we are today seen as a professional benchmark, expert and attentive to our clients. Their satisfaction rate is 97%,, a testimony to their loyalty to Tournaire and our long-lasting commercial relationship.

9000 BC… it was around then, apparently, that men first smelted copper, when they realized that it was far easier to melt down and reshape a broken tool than to process the ore necessary to make a new one.

The recycling of basic materials – metals, ferrous or otherwise, plastics, card, glass, etc. – is a widely recognized activity that generates local jobs that cannot be relocated: according to FEDEREC[1], the French Federation of Recycling Companies, French companies in the recycling sector employed 26,000 people at the end of 2013 – over 20% more than in 1999 –  in 2,300 companies with total sales of almost 9.5 billion euros.

Recycling fits perfectly with the logic of sustainable development: it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, lowers energy consumption, optimizes use of limited natural resources, and avoids the burying of waste in landfill sites. Recycled metals offer advantages in terms of the environment compared to the mining of virgin raw materials, since metals suffer no degradation during the recycling process: they can be infinitely recycled.

Among recycled metals aluminum is without any doubt the one that enables the greatest savings to be made in CO2 emissions and energy consumption, as reported by the web site of the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries, CARI [2].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfectly in line with this logic of recycling and value recovery, Tournaire Group’s Packaging Division[3] has for many years produced recyclable products, in compliance with European regulations on packaging design.

Particular attention is thus paid to:

• The extraction and production of raw materials, the transport and packaging of materials delivered to Tournaire;

the manufacture of containers, the recycling of by-products and waste generated by the manufacturing process, and the packaging of the finished product for delivery to the client;

• The end-of-life of containers (recycling of the aluminum and plastic, incineration of plastic accessories).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, its Environmental Management system enables Tournaire, through its Equipment and Packaging Divisions, to achieve continuing progress in limiting its environmental impact.

• All employees are involved in waste sorting, enabling waste to be sent to specialized centers for recovery of materials or energy;
• Effluents are managed on site in Grasse thanks to Tournaire’s own waste water treatment plant;
• Emissions are checked and monitored to ensure that regulatory limits are observed;
• Manufacturing processes are optimized to limit impact on resources (water, gas, electricity);
• Significant means are devoted to monitoring and anticipating regulatory changes so as to ensure that products and equipment comply with the ever-stricter European and French regulations ;
• The company takes part voluntarily in local initiatives in favor of the environment, particularly in the framework of an inter-company Transport Plan.

 

[1] http://www.federec.org/

[2] https://cari-acir.org/

[3]  Tournaire Group’s Packaging Division is certified ISO 14001, as is the Equipment Division

 

Tournaire is the expert in the processing and protection of natural raw materials. The company has been able, for almost two centuries, to offer innovative solutions at the leading edge of technology, because it invests massively in research and development and is always on the watch for new processes and materials.

But also because for many years the company has implemented an ambitious human resources policy, to recruit and train the profiles that clients need.

A review with Gaëlle Cascailh, the company’s Human Resources Manager.

What is your role in the company?

• I have been Human Resources Manager since September 2012. As such I’m in charge, in particular, of supporting the acquisition and development of skills by our employees. From this point of view my role as HRM could be considered ‘traditional’. But my mission is more complex than that because of our sectors of activity: both the Equipment Division and the Packaging Division operate in highly competitive environments and above all with technologies and processes that are constantly evolving. That means I have to be permanently in touch with our teams to know how our job profile needs are changing and anticipate future requirements.

 

Do you have any concrete example in mind?

• There are lots! For example, early in 2015 the people in the Packaging Division asked me to recruit a new profile that hadn’t previously existed in Tournaire: an industrial IT engineer, to work in the Methods department on production support. The aim is to improve industrial performance on all the production lines, which are becoming more and more automated and robotized. This should lead to improved productivity and also the setting up of ever-stricter quality controls to meet changes in standards and legislation.
• Alongside questions of new profiles we also have to adapt to significant changes in existing job requirements. Of course Tournaire will always need machine operatives, metalworkers and maintenance technicians. But if we look at that last job the needs today are more diversified, because as well as the basic skills we need expertise in automation systems and electrical engineering. There are similar changes in the support functions: finance, accounting, budget control, KPI monitoring, etc.

 

Is it easy for a company like Tournaire to recruit

• Not always! On one hand because of these unceasing technological changes that we’ve already mentioned; on the other hand because we have a number of specialties that are, as we say, “under pressure”: that means that for these jobs it’s not easy to recruit, either because ‘traditional’ training no longer exists (for example, for the job of finishing grinder operative), or the technological profiles required are not available in our region. So we have to broaden the scope of our research and look for the necessary skills elsewhere. Another alternative which we have developed considerably is in-house training, taking into account the specific features of our specialties. This is done in particular in our company academy that was founded in 2009 with as a priority the handing-on of know-how from an expert employee to younger colleagues. For us this is an essential condition if we are to keep up with the pack and identify, for our clients, the most experienced teams who can find an answer to all the problems of a market that is forever changing.

 

 

 

• Difficulty in recruiting stems in certain cases from the very nature of our business and our unceasing quest for excellence in every field. Take the example of the Packaging Division: we design and manufacture our own machines, so in our design office we have a team dedicated to the mechanical design of these machines and then workshops that produce all the necessary parts; today we are the only company in the market that works in this way. This too is what enables us to offer our clients the solution that perfectly matches their needs in every respect. The same is true of the Equipment Division: once we have understood and analyzed a client’s request we look for the solution that will satisfy their expectations; we assemble it and then test it in our own workshops before installing it in the client’s plant. This is not mass production but made-to-measure – a bit like the Hermes leather-worker who never produces two identical items!

 

In addition to the in-house training you can offer young people who join Tournaire, what are your main sources for identifying suitable profiles ?

• We have quite a few young people on sandwich courses, after two years of higher education or an engineering degree. At present, in Tournaire, we have 6 young people in this situation. As from the autumn of 2015 we expect to have 8 sandwich course students on our payroll. If young people want to learn and progress, if they are attracted by the idea of excellence and being good at a job, we will have an opening for them at the end of their course. We are also in close contact with schools in the region and we regularly take part in industry weeks. Finally, in view of our reputation in the region and beyond, we receive quite a few unsolicited applications for jobs or internships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What jobs are available in the company at the moment?

• At present we are looking for a sales engineer for the natural extracts market; a technical service salesperson for the natural extracts market; a Maintenance Technician; a Methods Technician; a trainee for an internship in the management control and information systems department.
• Offers can be consulted on our web site: https://www.tournaire.fr/carrieres/les-offres/. Candidates can apply on line.

 

Tournaire ranks among the French champions for dynamism and growth!

Tournaire receives a dual tribute for it economic performance

and its international expansion

 

The new ranking drawn up by l’Express-l’Expansion pays tribute to the performance of Tournaire, which has risen to 76th place in the list of the 150 best independent companies in France and 80th among French international champions. A review of the key factors behind this success:.

Innovation, Internationalization and Adaptation: these points common to all the leaders are precisely part of Tournaire’s DNA

Out of a list of 8,000 independent companies*, only 150 fulfill the performance criteria selected. To be one of those chosen a company had to have a turnover of over 10 million euros along with a cumulative growth of turnover of over 20% over the last few years and profits before tax of at least 3%. These results had to be achieved independently, without the backing of a group. The head of the company had to possess at least 10% of the equity .

While the sectors of activity of the winners were extremely varied, they shared the same success factors: the chosen companies, often with long histories, had aimed for innovation and international development to consolidate their market positions.

The international aspect is so important today that it was the object of a specific award for the 100 French SMEs and mid-market companies posting the best performances in this field. Here too Tournaire features among the winning companies, in 80th place. These two awards are perfectly in line with Tournaire’s strategic choices, focused on excellence and international development

Agile, reactive, aggressive, these companies are headed by pragmatic entrepreneurial leaders committed to the life of the company. They know how to guide their teams towards unceasing reinvention of their offering so as to satisfy a demand that is continually being renewed.

Tournaire, a dynamic company, emblem of success.

“Founded in 1833, Tournaire has become an essential player in the fields of equipment and packaging for raw materials in France and abroad thanks to its constant quest for excellence, its permanent innovation and its diversification in line with the demands of its clients. Our commitment to ‘Produce the best, protect the most’ perfectly sums up the company’s philosophy. We are proud to feature in these prestige rankings. This is another acknowledgement of our permanent commitment,” stated Mr Luc Tournaire, Company Chairman.

*SMEs , mid-market companies and family groups listed by Ellisphère