Premium Beauty News - How is Axilone positioned in the luxury packaging market?
Laurent Chevallier - Historically, our business has been built around two core categories: fragrance caps and premium lipstick packaging for makeup. Axilone has long been a partner to major brands and has established a strong position in complex packaging solutions, particularly those made from aluminum.
Over the past few years, we have been steadily broadening our portfolio alongside these established categories. Today, we are reinforcing our presence in skincare caps, expanding our makeup offering with glosses, sticks, and compacts, and moving into new categories such as beauty pens.
Premium Beauty News - In this highly competitive market, what are Axilone’s key strengths?
Laurent Chevallier - Three factors differentiate us. First, our dual expertise in metal and plastic, supported by an industrial network of factories that process both materials, enables us to develop solutions combining one or both, depending on the project. Second, we have built extensive expertise in complex packaging solutions, driven in large part by the premium segment, which accounts for more than half of our business. Finally, our manufacturing footprint spans both Europe and Asia, with production capabilities in France, Spain, and China. This gives our major clients greater supply chain resilience through dual-sourcing options and the ability to allocate production across multiple sites.
Premium Beauty News - How has the company evolved over the past three years?
Laurent Chevallier - Our transformation has been driven by three pillars: business performance, industrial capabilities, and production capacity. From a business perspective, after a difficult 2024 marked by destocking and a slowdown in Asia, followed by a stable 2025, we are now seeing a clear recovery. Fragrance has been a key growth driver, with volumes increasing, and we expect revenue to grow by around 15% in 2026. Our order book continues to expand, with project activity accelerating, and we are entering 2027 with a renewed sense of optimism.
On the industrial capabilities side, one of our biggest priorities has been increasing the versatility of our manufacturing network. Historically, each factory specialized in a single product category. The post-Covid environment, however, has heightened customers’ expectations for supply security and flexibility. Over the past three years, we have invested in equipment, skills development, and knowledge sharing to make our eight production sites far more versatile. Our objective is to be able to manufacture our full product portfolio in both Europe and China, while offering sourcing strategies that leverage multiple production locations.
Finally, we have doubled the capacity of our specialized aluminum plant in Spain. Construction began in 2024, and the expanded facility entered production in 2026.
This investment is designed both to support market growth and to strengthen Axilone’s European manufacturing capacity in aluminum—a material we consider increasingly strategic, particularly in its low-carbon form, as the industry focuses on reducing carbon footprints and advancing circularity through recycling.
Premium Beauty News - So, can you elaborate on your latest investments?
Laurent Chevallier - Our investments have focused on four main areas.
The first is the doubling of our aluminum production capacity in Spain, a major project that strengthens our manufacturing capabilities in Europe.
The second is the development of new aluminum processing technologies, including cold forging and stamping for thick-walled parts. These capabilities are enabling us to create new solutions for fragrance caps and selected makeup applications.
The third area is decoration, where we are investing in more environmentally friendly finishing processes, including water-based and solvent-free technologies.
Finally, we are accelerating investment in automation to enhance our industrial competitiveness.
Overall, we have invested more than EUR 60 million in Europe, covering both the expansion of our Spanish facility and lipstick manufacturing capabilities at our Brittany sites.
Premium Beauty News - What are your main challenges today?
Laurent Chevallier - Having diversified our manufacturing footprint, our next challenge is to maintain the highest standards of quality and aesthetics while responding to increasingly demanding environmental requirements. We need to continue advancing our decarbonization efforts while helping our clients prepare for a changing regulatory landscape. The PPWR will introduce stricter requirements around material choices, recyclability, and recycled content. Therefore, our challenge is to continue delivering packaging solutions that meet these environmental expectations without compromising the desirability and premium finish that luxury brands expect.
Premium Beauty News - What are your strategic objectives?
Laurent Chevallier - Our ambition is clear: to maintain—and strengthen—our leadership position. That means continuing to excel in product quality and compliance, innovation, competitiveness, and flawless execution.
Our roadmap is built around three priorities. First, we want to sustain the momentum of our core businesses —particularly our aluminum portfolio — while expanding our customer base, especially among independent brands, and accelerating growth in markets such as China and the Middle East.
The second priority is diversification into adjacent categories, building on the group’s existing expertise to bring differentiated solutions to new product segments.
Alongside these growth ambitions, we remain committed to our ESG roadmap and to further reducing our carbon footprint. Low-carbon aluminum is already a well-established part of our offering, with dedicated product ranges available in both Europe and Asia, and we are also advancing our plastics substitution strategy.
Premium Beauty News - A word about your participation in Luxe Pack Monaco?
Laurent Chevallier - This will be our 37th participation in the show! We will be presenting several new formats, including a new generation of beauty pens, refillable all-aluminum compact solutions, and expanded stick ranges featuring new sizes and functionalities for skincare, sun care, and fragrance.
As every year, we will also unveil an innovation showcase built around three key themes: PPWR-ready and low-carbon solutions, new application technologies, and decorative expertise — one of the group’s long-standing strengths.
