How did you start in the business?

I started out in the printing business and then wrapping paper in 1994, by taking over a printer specialized in flexography and producing floral wrapping paper. When I sold the business ten years later for health reasons, it was the number one in France for floral wrapping paper. After a few years as a consultant on acquiring companies for others, I came back to wrapping paper in May 2005, when I bought a business based  in Brie-Comte-Robert (77), split into three entities - Papeterie d’Ormesson, Beaulieu Emballage, Lesmayoux – that owned a store selling items for the catering trade at Rungis Market. The manager of this company created in 1946, daughter of the founder, was closing down her business. For financial and strategic reasons, I merged the whole under the Alsys name.

What is your business ?

Our business takes place at two sites: Brie-Comte-Robert and Rungis. In Brie-Comte-Robert, we do the printing and processing of all materials (paper, polypropylene, polyethylene) used to wrap food products and, generally speaking, to package all retail and industrial products, whether or not food-related. We have premises of 10 000 m2 with one 8 000 m2 building (park of machines, finished product and raw materials inventory, offices, etc.), and we process just over 4 000 tons of paper per year for about 250 institutional customers. After a tough start-up period, 2009 was positive (+4%). Our turnover is currently balanced, with the development of floral wrapping (creation of the “aquacub”, water reserve) and the boxes for Petits Suisses, while food packaging is slightly down. Our flagship products are all direct contact food wrappers for the food industry. Our strength lies in our teams’ ability to react quickly and our capacity to innovate and produce at every level.
At Rungis, our store is dedicated to our 3 000 retail food industry customers and we have over 700 listed products (wrapping paper, film and food bags, trays, pots, tableware, boxes, containers, etc.). Run by a team of five people who know this sector very well, it has a turnover of over 2 million euros.

Do you have a development strategy ?

The major line of our development strategy is to further develop the quality, traceability and follow-up of our clients, because we make products in direct contact with foodstuffs.

To that end, we have boosted our quality control team. Quality pays because although we are slightly more expensive than our competitors, our market share is growing. Furthermore, we are going to develop our activity in the retail trade in Ile-de-France where we have 8% market share.   

What is your opinion of the wrapping paper market ?

The wrapping paper market is going to split into two parts: firstly, the professionals who provide a service, propose top quality products and have a good image; secondly, the “short-term” businesses that propose products at the lowest cost, skimping on quality, traceability, technical quality and follow-up. The business is moving more towards quality and traceability because the consumer wants to know what he’s eating and in what he’s eating. All this will come about with intelligent labelling and the carbon law. The market will reposition itself with the reduction in excess packaging. It is a long-term market that is changing positively, particularly for direct contact packaging.