Founded in 1833, Tournaire came into being along with the first perfume flower distilleries in Grasse. Originally a coppersmith, manufacturer of stills and cans for flower oils in copper, Tournaire continually acquired new expertise to meet the specific needs of the developing perfume industry.
From its beginnings until today, Tournaire has undergone several major transformations: while Tournaire began life as a craft industry, mechanization as from 1950 boosted it to new levels of productivity and quality: then the phase of industrialization – from 1960 onwards – took over before giving way to automation in 1980. In 2011 the Tournaire Group moved into the era of robotization with a first line equipped with three robots.
Today, Tournaire, still family-owned, is an international group present in 70 countries and generates an annual turnover of around 55 million euros, 65% of which is made on foreign market. Tournaire’s acknowledged expertise in leading-edge techniques (extraction, subcritical distillation, filtration, etc.) and high-quality technical packaging is available to industry throughout the world. Expert in the valuation of natural raw materials and the mobility of sensitive materials, Tournaire is recognized worldwide for its ability to provide premium, custom-designed equipment and high-tech packaging to the industries of perfumes, flavors, food ingredients, cosmetics, health, etc …
New engineering services now complement the offer of the Equipment Division Equipment in order to provide its customers with turnkey global solutions, including assistance to project management (management of utilities, piping, electricity, insulation, conveying, etc …).
Regarding the molecular distillation process, Tournaire innovates with the implementation of technological agreements and partnerships with Laboratoires Expanscience (user of the process) and the company BUSS-SMS, leader in thin-film evaporation technologies (core of the molecular distillation process). A new test unit has also been made available to customers in the Tournaire pilot hall for a few days.
Tournaire will present its innovations in terms of services and its advances in the molecular distillation process at Achema, a global benchmark for process equipment, which takes place in Frankfurt from the 11th to the 15th of June (booth A44 in hall 4.0). Invitations can be obtained on request from Karine Condo (karine.condo@tournaire.fr)
To read the article in french on Pôle de Compétitivité’s website, you can click here.
