At the dawn of its 190 years, Tournaire is changing its paradigm. The family company from Grasse, specialist in industrial barrier packaging, opens its capital. “A common thing in the life of a company, a little less in those of old businesses in Grasse“, smiles its president, Luc Tournaire. The idea behind this new capital structure: to adapt to a more global world, to professionalize its shareholding and, one year after selling its Equipment subsidiary to ADF, to refocus its activity on the packaging segment , strongly accelerate development, especially for export, with the support and resources that are going well.
The Grasse group has also just announced the entry, recorded on September 28, of the French capital investment company, Motion Equity Partners, as majority shareholder. Created 25 years ago, it has one billion euros under management. It has supported and accompanied the development of 17 French SMEs and ETIs, particularly in the renewable packaging, nutrition and health sectors, such as Omni-Pac Group (European leader in the molded cellulose packaging market), EA Pharma (pharmaceutical laboratory in oligotherapy and health nutrition) or Diana Ingrédients (worldwide suppliers of innovative natural ingredients).
Consolidate export
Founded almost two centuries ago, the Tournaire group claims European leadership in premium one-piece aluminum packaging solutions. This activity represents 85% of its turnover, established in 2021 at 90 million euros. The remaining 15% concerns the high-performance plastic packaging activity, located in Fragnes, in Saône-et-Loire. The company, which employs 350 people, has a portfolio of more than 900 customers operating mainly in the perfumery/cosmetics (30% of its billings), pharmaceuticals and food sectors.
“This capital opening will enable us to accelerate our growth projects.”explains Jeanne Lions, general manager of the Grasse group which wants toswitch from a European Tournaire to a global Tournaire“. Export therefore appears to be one of the major orientations that will dominate the roadmap for the next five years currently being drawn up with the new shareholder. Europe represents 40% of its activity. The objective is therefore to consolidate there, but also to open up other possible fields, particularly in the United States where it has a commercial subsidiary.
Improve the recyclability of products
It is also “improve the recyclability of our aluminum products, a material that is on the rise because it is infinitely recyclable and has real growth potential“, notes the one who also intends to penetrate new application markets such as those of automotive adhesives, metal powders used in additive manufacturing or even electrolytes for batteries. Finally, investments will contribute to strengthening the CSR policy of the group already certified EcoVadis, gold level, which has just started its carbon footprint and plans to work on the life cycle analysis of its products.
As for its geographical expansion, Tournaire, whose management remains unchanged, does not rule out carrying out external growth operations, or developing its means of production outside the Grasse perimeter. The new PPRI (flood risk prevention plan) being drawn up by the Côte d’Azur community would indeed consider placing the historic site of the company in the red zone, which would prohibit any new construction. A constraint that should therefore be transformed into an opportunity, by developing potential secondary sites in the east or north of France, thus enabling it to better serve Northern Europe.