The French manufacturer of natural active ingredients for the cosmetic industry is inaugurating its production unit dedicated to biotechnologies; this will be the sixth inauguration organized by the company since it was founded 30 years ago.

1st row, from left to right: Mr. Bernie, Mr. Coste, Mr. Vandenbroucke, Mr. Soulier, Mr. Paufique (Silab), Mrs. Dessus

These new industrial facilities, which represent an investment of 5 million euros, have been built upstream of the three current production lines dedicated to cosmetic active ingredients. They will be reserved exclusively for large-scale cell culturing, for yeasts and micro-algae for example.

Yeasts and micro-algae are environmentally friendly natural raw materials that respect biodiversity. Rich in active molecules of interest, they are then used by the company as raw materials to manufacture its purified active ingredients that have been proven safe,” explique Silab.

With an industrial capacity of up to 100 tons of biomass per year, this biotechnology production unit dedicated to cell culturing can produce approximately 1 ton of biomass from a tube of only 1 millilitre of mother cells within one week. The entire process is automated and supervised by monitoring software and a hundred or so sensors to ensure quality, traceability and reproducibility.

Silab already markets a wide range of active ingredients (anti-wrinkle, skin complexion, moisturizing, repairing, etc.) made from unicellular organisms.