Between mono-material creations and eco-responsibility, Cosfibel Premium’s new Spring/Summer 2023 Boxes collection is composed of 4 singular themes, declined in as many boxes, adaptable to your tastes. Zoom on this collection.

Monomaterial wood box, made of plywood wrapped with wood veneer

Clarity :

One piece, one color, one concept.
This theme was inspired by the great names of 1960s couture : Courrèges and Cardin, who emphasized pure and refined lines.

Here, we seek a balance between abstraction and elegance, but also between technology and well-being. This theme evokes sobriety, relevance and purity. The Venice box, made of wood only, plays with volume, construction and graphics. Its closing system is patented, without any additional material.

Monomaterial & plastic free box, made of paper greyboard & molded paper

Harmony :

This is the theme of dreamers, romantics and lucid, rural 2.0 who want to reenchant their daily life.

The key words of this theme are craftsmanship, charm and eco-positive creations. Harmony is a palette of calm and neutral colors, inspired by plants, fresh and soft.

Monomaterial & plastic free box, made of paper

Illusion :

Illusion is the fusion of the real and the artificial, where the world is reconfigured. A sort of third world, halfway between the metaverse and the real. We enter a new reality, a waking dream, filtered by fluorescent colors and bright clouds.

The Helsinki box set plays with colors, shapes, and reliefs to offer a condensed lightness and creativity. Moreover, its closing system does not use any magnets.

Monomaterial & plastic free box, made of paper

Celebration :

Authenticity and balance guide Celebration. This theme is informed by primal sensory, cultural treasures and Creole cultures.

The Praïa box fits perfectly into this theme with its jungle motif, colors and earthy, bright and festive tones. Its little extra ? A hidden QR code to add a personalized message or discover information about the product.

Contact us to find out more about Cosfibel Premium collections: contact@cosfibelgroup.com

After two years of pandemics that have undermined industrial activity and while sustainable development is at the heart of the issues, the pack & gift industry has to reinvent itself. In this context, Cosfibel Group relies on two strong values to respond with finesse to the demands of its customers and to assert itself as a leader in the transition of its industry: intimacy and creativity, the keystones of an efficient customer relationship and sustainable packaging innovation.

Through its various entities, Cosfibel listens to its customers and the needs they express in order to adapt its organisation and methods to meet their expectations with precision. A positioning that reveals a strong trend: the customer is at the initiative of the market transformation. We are moving away from the historical pattern of the passive consumer who undergoes trends to enter the era of the “customer 2.0” who dictates tomorrow’s trends through the expectations he or she claims. To sum up, the end consumer has new requirements (quality, materials, durability, lightness, etc.), which are passed on to our customers (the brands), who in turn pass them on to us so that we can finally implement them. This situation creates a virtuous circle of research and innovation, fed by the growing demand for sustainable packaging innovation.

Monomaterial, magnet-free, recyclable box by our design studio.

To respond to this new situation, Cosfibel is positioning itself as a leader in the consolidation and transformation of its market. This transformation must be designed to continue to fulfil our primary mission in a sustainable way: to help our customers create memorable consumer experiences. Secondary packaging, gifts, bags and accessories are all ways to bring magic to the discovery of the product and the brand. The strong demand for eco-responsible approaches is not intended to conflict with this mission, but rather to reinforce and perpetuate it.

In order to carry out this mission and respond to the necessary market transformations that our clients are expressing, every project begins with two key points:

• Intimacy with the client allows us to be tailor-made: each packaging and each gift must tell its own story: the history of the brand, its identity, its values, its commitments.
• Creativity allows us to surprise and make people dream: materials, design, closing systems (…): all these elements are a good opportunity to surprise, innovate, stimulate changes and create magic…

In addition to these two fundamental pillars, there is also security, which guarantees the successful completion of projects. We source the best materials and factories to support our customers by being as faithful as possible to their demands. To do this, we work with a hundred or so factories around the world, which have been audited beforehand to meet our quality criteria and those of our customers.

Among the other pillars that make up our core values, we have been investing in CSR since 2012. Since then, we have never stopped growing our commitment in this area: we are committed to reference labels, in particular as a partner of the Global Compact United Nations program, by being certified GRS (Global Recycled Standard), GOTS (Global ORGANIC Textile Standard) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or through our Fairtrade Max Havelaar cotton licence since 2019. In 2002, we received the highest recognition of this commitment with the award of the Platinum status of the Ecovadis label.

A caramel cardboard and metal box produced in our factory in Belgium

Finally, we also rely heavily on innovation. Today, large groups are looking for impactful innovations to revitalise the pack & gift sector. Our vocation is to be at the forefront of this innovation in order to provide real added value in terms of advice and creative inspiration to our clients.

These key points (intimacy, creativity, safety, CSR, innovation) are at the heart of what the major cosmetics & fragrance groups expect from us. By focusing our strategy around these pillars, we are able to support ultra-luxury brands as well as brands present in parapharmacies, institutes or in the premium departments of perfume stores. In parallel to this multiple expertise, our international presence allows us to adapt our creations to all markets, from China to the USA, via the Middle East.

To ensure optimal control of the know-how specific to Europe, we have strengthened our offer thanks to our factories, which are the perfect illustration of the adaptation of manufacturing methods to the needs and desires of customers.

A range of recyclable cardboard boxes produces in our spanish factory

Thanks to our Cartec factory based in Belgium, we manage a 100% European RPET production, able to respond with unparalleled reactivity to various orders from the cosmetics and food industries. In this market segment, the observation is the same: customers’ expectations are evolving towards new, more eco-designed materials. This has led to a premiumisation of packaging: we are seeing a rise in orders from mass-market brands, which we are able to meet thanks to Cartec’s know-how and production capacity. Here again, the market is evolving hand in hand with our customers and in a “bottom-up” manner: from the customer to the brands and their production partners.

Grumbe, the group’s historic Spanish subsidiary, is another striking example of this market transformation that is as rapid as it is demanding: a specialist in plastics for decades, the brand-plant has reinvented itself around cardboard and multi-material creation, to meet the demands of the cosmetics, pharmaceutical and perfume industries.

Marie-Claire Figadère, Grumbe’s Sales Director, talks about these market transformations:

Marie-Claire Figadere, Commercial Director at Grumbe

“Born in the 1960s, Grumbe has succeeded in positioning itself as a leader in the plastic packaging sector at the height of the golden age of this material. Since 2019, at the instigation of our customers, we have been undergoing a strategic readjustment by positioning ourselves on multi-material expertise, in particular around cardboard, whose environmental impact is controlled and on which the sector is banking heavily. While cardboard represented 15% of our orders in 2019, we have made heavy investments in machines to accelerate this transition, with an immediate result that perfectly illustrates the demand for change on the part of our customers: in 2021, the share of cardboard will already exceed 50% of the total production carried out by Grumbe! Our order books are growing again as a result of this transition. This transformation has therefore been implemented to meet a strong demand, but has only been possible thanks to the close support of our customers who have taken up this challenge with us.”

Faced with the various crisis that have been sowing turmoil in the world economy for more than two years, Cosfibel Group is working together to ensure its customers an unchanged quality of service in terms of cost, supply chain and logistics, while always remaining committed to limiting risks. Port or factory closures, confinements, raw material shortages, soaring costs and lead times (…) the health crisis and, more recently, the war in Ukraine are imposing major constraints on a pack & gift industry that is by nature based on international exchanges and permanent reactivity. To meet this major challenge, the group is implementing security plans orchestrated by purchasing and logistics teams who have redoubled their efforts to maintain the quality of service at the heart of Cosfibel’s DNA.

A solid network of partners to consolidate our supply chain and logistics

In a competitive and demanding pack & gift industry, the availability of resources, costs and deadlines are the key to optimal service quality. By mastering those variables, Cosfibel Group established itself as one of the European leaders in its market. To achieve this, the group has been building long-lasting relationships with reliable production partners around the world for more than twenty years.

Camille, the group’s Purchasing Manager, explains how this network guarantees maximum security: “We are able to offer ‘plan Bs’ at a single producer by relying on reliable partners located in different Chinese provinces. Our historical local partners offer different production sites, ensuring in-depth knowledge of the quality and expected know-how, as well as the ability to carry out an equivalent order in a different region than the one initially planned, while respecting the advertised prices, delivery times and quality. This major asset has enabled us to overcome the recent confinement of Shanghai.

This vast network of partners now allows the group to meet the same demand in different geographical areas with an equivalent quality of service. Cosfibel can thus rely on a network of local producers in Asia as well as in Europe or more recently in North and Central America. This is a major advantage for participating in the relocation of our industries and thus facing confinements, waiting times in ports or factories, or soaring raw material costs: in the event of a partner’s failure, complementary production can be carried out with agility at a factory elsewhere in the world.

Agility at the service of logistics

Karima, Logistics Director at Cosfibel, comes back on the importance of this logistical flexibility: “By relying on this agility, we can also respond favorably to an increase in quantity, even at the last minute, both for boxes and for gifts. In the middle of a pandemic, our teams managed to triple an initial order of one million pieces, while respecting the costs and deadlines.

To overcome supply problems, we can also send raw materials to a manufacturer who would not be able to obtain them on his own, thus enabling him to complete the expected order.

In support of these guarantees, Cosfibel’s logistics teams negotiate commitments on container prices and secure space via a double contract set up with their logistics partners (two options for each departure).

Diversification of our production partners, a key of our supply chain

“In parallel with this close relationship with our historical partners, we have been pursuing a policy of diversifying our sourcing as well as our production sites for several years. Our shortlist of

partners is expanding accordingly, in particular with new Asian countries that now have local know-how that was previously found only in China. This expansion policy further increases our capacity to carry out projects despite failures and unforeseen events,” explains Camille, Cosfibel’s Purchasing Director.

A local anchorage

Finally, Cosfibel also relies on technical and development teams around the world, notably in China, which allows it to overcome certain local constraints, whether they are temporary or long-lasting.

“Recently, the long delivery times to Hong Kong from China were the cause of delays in production. The presence of teams in Hong Kong and Shenzhen allowed us to get around these delays thanks to our local relays,” explains Camille, the group’s purchasing director.

In an industry that is seeking to reinvent itself, packaging innovation and research & development are at the heart of the issues. Cosfibel Group has created a dedicated innovation division (link to design and innovation), which works intelligently with all its departments to assert itself as a major player in the transition towards sustainable packaging.

“Green is the true chic”: the 4Rs, the golden rules of sustainable packaging innovation

Our designers, supported by the research and packaging innovation teams, aim to offer creations that meet the most modern eco-responsibility criteria. This ambition is based on 4 fundamental pillars:

– Reduce: less material, less transformation, less transport, less CO2(…): reduction is a key point of packaging innovation. Single-material creations are one of the best illustrations of this. Our teams are developing collections of top-of-the-range boxes made of 100% recycled cardboard.

– Recycling: Our engineers, R&D departments and designers work together to offer recyclable and/or recycled packaging solutions: Recycled PET, recycled polycotton, use of metal and long life cycle materials…

– Reuse: the reusability aspect is one of the main focuses of research in packaging innovation. The replacement of single-use objects and materials with reusable equivalents is at the heart of our creations.

– Rethink: packaging innovation is at the heart of our activity. Cosfibel Premium has filed numerous patents on sustainable packaging concepts: zipperless and magnetless closure systems, single-material boxes, etc. Our teams carry out constant research to avoid the use of fossil plastics and materials with a high impact on the environment (water, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions…).

Discover all our actions in favor of the environment here and our environmental and social policy on our dedicated page.

The Cosfibel Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Marie SERMADIRAS as the New Chief Executive Officer of all its operational subsidiaries, effective Jan 3^rd, 2022.

Marie SERMADIRAS, 32, had joined Cosfibel in May 2021, as Executive Vice-President, to prepare her transition to full operational leadership.

She will report to her predecessor, the group’s Executive Chairman, Alain CHEVASSUS, who founded Cosfibel in 2001 and has been the company’s main shareholder since then.

In 2021, the COSFIBEL group reached a turnover close to 85 million USD$, slightly above 2019’s results, reinforcing its market share while preserving its profitability.

The group is expecting a strong 2022 with an ambitious objective of reaching the 100 million USD$ turnover milestone, with a strong focus on high-value-added markets such as cosmetics, wine & spirits and fine food.

Marie SERMADIRAS’s main mission will be to build the path for profitable and sustainable growth, structuring Cosfibel to become a Midcap player on its market. This growth will mainly rely on a double-digit organic growth, supported by external acquisitions that will depend on opportunities created in complementary niche markets.

Marie SERMADIRAS will count on the support of two historical key leaders of the organization who will continue to sit at the Executive Committee of the company:

• Stanislas PERONNET, Deputy Managing Director, who has been recently entrusted with a new strategic mission of leading all innovation & sustainability topics for the group;
• Natali SPASENIC, Corporate CFO in charge of Finance, management control and Administration.

Alain CHEVASSUS is delighted about this new chapter Cosfibel is starting with Marie SERMADIRAS’s appointment and declares:

“I met Marie by a happy coincidence three years ago. The last seven months of common work confirmed my conviction that Marie’s entrepreneurial spirit, past successes and enthusiastic team spirit would be strong assets for Cosfibel. I am particularly proud to pass the torch to a 32-year-old female leader who will – thanks to her modernity – be able to face today’s world challenges and successfully serve our clients, our teams and our shareholders.

Marie SERMADIRAS declares: « I am proud to have been entrusted by Alain and am very excited about joining such a competent, expert and passionate team. We have absolutely all the assets needed to open a successful new chapter for Cosfibel, thanks to a strong corporate culture combined with healthy foundations. I look forward to developing the company further with a clear ambition to accelerate our diversification and modernization.

About Cosfibel

For two decades, Cosfibel has been leading the European pack and gift industry. Its teams breed imagination to nurture design, cultivate intimacy to deeply sense customer’s needs and champion the technical multi-material expertise to bring the unexpected to life. Thanks to its innovative approach of “make & trade” and the complementarity of its various brands (Cosfibel Premium, Shopluxe, BoîteAlu, MMB, Cartec, Grumbe, Laser & Packfactory), the Cosfibel group quickly became its clients’ preferred one-stop-shop partner, providing tailored and turnkey multi-materials packs, gifts & merchandising accessories.

About Marie Sermadiras

After graduating with Honors from HEC Paris, Marie started her career as an entrepreneur at the age of 22. Her company – Treatwell – quickly became the leading booking platform for beauty services in France and draw the attention of Recruit, a Japanese listed company, that bought Treatwell and hired Marie Sermadiras as the CEO of their French subsidiary. After this entrepreneurial experience, Marie was appointed Global Chief Digital Officer of L’Oréal Active Cosmetics, the fastest-growing division of the L’Oréal group, becoming the youngest member of an Executive Committee within the group. In 2021, she joins Cosfibel for a new entrepreneurial adventure, discovering the challenges of SMEs, after three successful experiences in start-up, scale-up and big international corporation ecosystems.