In response to a rapidly changing beauty market and economic turbulence in Asia, the global cosmetics packaging giant is adjusting its growth strategy. Appointed CEO last April, François Tassart details for Premium Beauty News the prospects for the Tubes and Cosmetics & Fragrance (C&F) divisions and stresses that thanks to major investments and a global presence in many segments, Albéa boasts significant growth levers.
Premium Beauty News – What is your vision of the beauty packaging market today?
François Tassart – Long-term trends are on the whole positive in terms of both volume and value. However, in the short term, we are facing turbulence in certain product segments or markets, which is generating major disparities.
In China, the market is stable, and this is reflected in the skincare and luxury segments. The perfume market is continuing to grow, especially in North America and Europe, but we need to take into account storage operations that occurred between 2021 and 2022. In make-up, the masstige segment is doing well, while the prestige market is still suffering from the slowdown in Asia. The hair care market is booming in North and South America, which is having a major impact on our tube business. The same applies to the oral care category, which is doing very well in Europe and Asia. These are the fundamentals for growth, and in Albéa’s case, we tend to perform well despite these disparities.
Premium Beauty News – So, to what do you attribute your good performances?
François Tassart – Firstly, to our 20-year commitment to CSR. We recently published our sixth annual Sustainable Development Report, and among other highlights, we have remained Ecovadis Gold and have doubled our use of PCR in 2023.
Secondly, to our innovation capability: we have 150 people committed to this area and we file around thirty patents a year.
Thirdly, to our agility and our ability to reduce development and production times, thanks to a strong global presence. With our 34 industrial sites, we can deliver faster to our customers and support growing local customers in North America, Indonesia and even France.
And finally, to our competitiveness, with major investments to improve all our industrial equipment and train our staff. This means we are fully operational across all geographical areas.
Premium Beauty News – To what extent do environmental issues continue to impact your strategy?
François Tassart – We are moving ahead with our CSR roadmap towards our commitments for 2025. One of these commitments was to achieve 10% use of PCR plastic, which we will exceed. We have also significantly increased our portfolio of recyclable solutions, in tubes (90%) and, to a lesser extent, in the Cosmetics & Fragrance (C&F) area.
We are focusing on the next steps by actively preparing the 2025/2030 roadmap and integrating the requirements of the new CSRD [1] Directive on traceability and transparency. To this end, Albéa is a founding member of the TRASCE consortium, alongside major international brands, and leading cosmetic industry suppliers. This initiative, driven by Chanel, aims to pool traceability approaches in the cosmetics sector using a common approach.
Premium Beauty News – And what does this represent in terms of investment?
François Tassart – We have already invested a lot in 2023, and the pace is accelerating in 2024 since we are devoting more than 7% of our turnover to optimising our industrial facilities. This includes, for example, the extension of our Chinese plant at Huai’an for metallization and injection, and the capacity increase at Brampton in Canada for the production of Greenleaf, a 100% recyclable tube dedicated to the beauty and toothpaste segments. We have also commissioned new lines for the manufacture of EcoTop, a tube whose head and closure only consist of one part, 40% lighter and recyclable. Industrialisation is underway for several diameters.
Another point to note is that each time we change materials, from ABS to PET, for example, we have to rethink our entire industrial process. We are also investing in the refillable concept with TWIRL, a plastic or glass jar with a 50 ml recyclable cup, also available in a 200 ml version.
Our investments are also aimed at decarbonising our plants. In France and Italy, we have done away with gas and switched to 100% heat pumps and green electricity!
Premium Beauty News – What are the development strategies for the Tubes and Cosmetics & Fragrances business units?
François Tassart – Concerning the Tube activity, Barbara de Saint Aubin, CEO of Albéa Tubes, and I want to transform the organisation worldwide. Instead of the current regional organisation, in the future, we aim to have an organisation based around the two major tube markets, beauty on the one hand, and healthcare, including oral care and pharmaceuticals, on the other. The reason for this is that these customers have different needs. For beauty products, we produce 80% extruded tubes, whereas for toothpaste, we produce 95% laminated tubes. The technologies, expectations and issues are not the same. We want to be even more responsive to the needs of our customers in these two markets that are moving at different speeds. For example, in terms of eco-design, in the beauty industry, the use of PCR already amounts to more than 8%. This is less the case for toothpaste, but we are making progress on recyclability with Greenleaf.
For our C&F business, we are looking to develop local production. The idea is to accelerate regionalisation or to have hybrid models between Asia and Europe, to improve agility and competitiveness for our local customers.
Overall, we also need to ensure synergies between each of our activities, so the aim is to step up collaboration between the Tube and C&F teams on all our strategic moves (sales, procurement, CSR, data, HR…).
Premium Beauty News – Albéa recently parted company with the Innovative Beauty Group, its full-service partner, for what reasons?
François Tassart – IBG made several acquisitions in recent years, which have led it to change its business model and therefore to find a financial partner, in this case, Fremman Capital, who could back up and accelerate its development. But we still work in synergy with IBG, which remains a preferred full-service partner. We can provide technical solutions to the projects and we complement each other.
Premium Beauty News – What are the Albéa Group’s growth drivers for the coming years?
François Tassart – We are looking at areas where there is growth potential that could make sense. China remains an important driver for the Group. It is a market where we are growing in all segments and which remains positive over the long term. Our local factories remain busy with local brands and with our key export markets. The fact that all our moulds are designed locally is an asset.
We are also paying close attention to Latin America, where there’s significant growth in the cosmetics sector, from Mexico to Argentina and Brazil. We are looking at organic opportunities, particularly in Mexico, where we are well positioned with three production sites, and potentially also at external growth opportunities.
The same is true for Poland, where we already have three sites. Finally, there’s South-East Asia for local brands. The first country being Indonesia, where we are well positioned with three plants, but there is also Vietnam and Thailand.
Finally, our growth prospects also lie in technological breakthroughs, which our R&D department is actively working on.
