Premium Beauty News – How would you describe the Adopt Parfums concept?
Frédéric Stoeckel – The brand was created in 1986, but it has undergone radical changes over the past ten years. It was founded under the name Réserve Naturelle by a man from the South-Western city of Bordeaux, who opened about 60 stores in France. Then, in 2015, it was purchased by an investment fund which broadened the network to 135 stores and renamed it “Adopt”.
When I took the position of President, in January 2019, I stopped opening stores and instead focused on the gem that was part of the concept: “making high-quality perfume affordable to all”.
We started working with great perfumers and fine fragrance noses at Firmenich, Symrise, Robertet, Givaudan, etc., and we recruited a Perfume Creation Director, who redesigned all juices to make original, high-quality creations in collaboration with them.
We also boast a body care offering, ranges that complement our perfumes, an anti-ageing, oily skin, skin-brightening face care range, a makeup range, and home fragrances.
Premium Beauty News – What is the French Fragrance Revolution about, exactly?
Frédéric Stoeckel – We suggest a change in how we use perfume, or a complementary use to more expensive perfumes. Our customers can have not only one fragrance, but several interchangeable ones with which they can have fun. A 30-ml bottle costs EUR 10.95. We can call it democratization, as a new alternative which does not exclude great luxury brands.
The approach is not based on a flagship product, but on a diverse offering. In our stores, we expose over 90 perfumes organized according to their olfactory families, and our portfolio counts 150 of them.
Our model consists in spending all our money on juices. We produce them ourselves, always with the same bottle – a 30-ml tube. And the decoration consists of labels; there is no secondary packaging. We do not use ads a lot, because we express ourselves through our stores.
And it works perfectly well, since Adopt sells one perfume every five seconds, somewhere in the world. We sold 6 million bottles in 2022, so we must be one of the perfume leaders in volume in France. The brand grew by 35% last year.
Premium Beauty News – Are all products made in France?
Frédéric Stoeckel – Right now, they are all made in Bordeaux, but they will soon be produced in the future plant we recently purchased in Château Renard, two hours south of Paris. It is undergoing some works, but we will be able to start bottling our perfumes in May and make the juices in October. In early 2024, the whole production will be taken care of in this plant, so that in Bordeaux, we will focus on shower gel manufacturing.
Premium Beauty News – What is your growth strategy in France and abroad?
Frédéric Stoeckel – In France, we almost no longer open owned stores. We only do it through franchisees and affiliates. There are 173 now, and there will be 200 by the end of the year. On the global level, we are present in 40 countries, on all continents, through various distribution models, franchises, perfume shops, drugstores, and digital concepts.
Premium Beauty News – Can you tell us more about your growth objectives?
Frédéric Stoeckel – Right now, we aim to drive the brand’s growth on the global level. Adopt Parfums is a small rising brand in France, but tomorrow, we also want it to be the fastest-growing, globally.
We are already present in 40 countries, but we are not planning to stop here. We opened a subsidiary in Spain last January, with two stores, in Barcelona and Madrid. We intend to grow the same business in Spain as in France. In China, we have been developing a digital strategy. We already have several stores in Asia, in South Korea, Vietnam, etc. The US is a more complex market – we should enter it this year. African countries also offer a big potential, and we are actually already present in Nigeria and Cameroon, as well as in the Middle East.
Premium Beauty News – What about sustainability?
Frédéric Stoeckel – We work a lot on ingredient supply chains. Adopt Parfums already supports efforts to reintroduce iris in France, and to make the vanilla chain sustainable in Madagascar, along with our partners. We also have projects focused on patchouli, ylang ylang, etc.
We are also working on reducing our carbon impact, in particular by investing almost 3 million euros in the new plant to improve our energy and water consumption and develop recycling. Lastly, we have implemented a recycling policy based on packaging collection in our stores. The hummingbird is our symbol: it perfectly conveys the brand’s features, in particular three: femininity, flowers, and environmental responsibility.
