Aptar Beauty, part of the Aptar Group, celebrated the 60th anniversary of its Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton plant on June 13, 2025. The company took advantage of the event to highlight the site's production and innovation capabilities.
Société Technique de Pulvérisation (Step), founded in 1965 and based in Verneuil-sur-Avre, was acquired by Aptar subsidiary Valois in 1993, before the American manufacturer brought all its activities under the Aptar banner in 2010. On June 13, 2025, the site of Aptar Beauty, a global specialist in distribution systems for the perfumery and cosmetics markets, celebrated 60 years of activity in Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton, the municipality created in 2017 by the merger of Verneuil-sur-Avre and Francheville.
An industrial, multi-purpose site in the heart of a town with the "Petite Cité de Caractère" label: employing over 250 people, the 20,000 m2 plant boasts a test laboratory working in particular on container/form compatibility, and a production area with 42 molding presses, 36 assembly machines, as well as packaging and bottling equipment. Some 1.7 billion plastic parts are manufactured each year at Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton.
"This site embodies Aptar Beauty's DNA, in terms of precision, creativity, performance and ecological commitments. It also embodies resilience and adaptation to market situations - many products from the Verneuil site are, in particular, samples for the promotion of fragrances whose production is seasonal. The Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton plant is subject to major fluctuations in activity - more so than Aptar's other sites - and requires a great deal of agility".explained Marc Prieur at the 60th anniversary celebration.
Environmental concerns
Aptar Beauty takes action to limit its environmental impact. At Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton, the company is committed throughout the development process to recycling 95 % of the plastic used during production, to phasing out POM (Polyoxymethylene), gradually in old references and definitively for all new projects, to producing packaging incorporating post-consumer recycled materials (PCR) and to proposing recyclable solutions to optimize product end-of-life.
Aptar's ecological ambitions are also reflected in its production processes. The stated aim is to have 100 % of the molding presses on what the company calls its "Normandy platform" electrically powered by 2030. By using cleaner processes (with no oil pollution) that respect the environment, the group also hopes to save between 25 and 40 % on energy consumption at Aptar Beauty's three sites in Normandy, and benefit from reduced maintenance costs. "However, reducing our carbon footprint also involves optimizing assembly and utilities. The Aptar Group has a real determination to act, he told journalists during a tour of the plant.
In the assembly shop, pneumatic actuators are gradually being replaced by hydraulic actuators. The plant has, for example, a machine with electric actuators that handles products four by four, enabling it to reach speeds of around 220 parts per minute.
While the pump cores are manufactured at the Le Neubourg site, the Verneuil plant is able to carry out the assembly steps required to produce the finished products. Rings, casings, covers, tappets and tubes are assembled automatically, before robots pack the finished products into cartons.
At the Verneuil site, four machines are dedicated to the manufacture of the Easy sample tube. Plunger, ring, piston, spring and tube are assembled in a single step. Around 1.6 million Easy vials leave the plant every day. Tubes are filled in situ in the filling workshop before the pumps are added, and before being packaged for a turnkey service. The Normandy site's processing capacity for filling and inserting: 100,000 parts per day.z
Following the acquisition of iD Scent, the Verneuil plant also manages the production of an innovative range of paper perfume samples, recyclable thanks to its mono-material paper composition.
The plant has benefited from recent investments: an additional filling line, the first electric presses, and a strengthening of R&D functions working on airless and fragrance prestige innovations. The Nomad Refill, the first bag spray that can be refilled directly onto a perfume bottle in less than five seconds, launched at the beginning of 2025, is proof of the company's capacity for innovation!
| Local roots and synergies Three plants less than 100 km apart, all in the Eure region, make up Aptar Beauty's "Normandy platform". Aptar Le Neubourg is a molding (70 presses) and assembly site for dispensing systems for the high-end luxury perfume and cosmetics markets. Aptar Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton combines molding (42 presses, 200 to 215 molds in operation), assembly (36 machines), filling and packaging of mini-packs, airless products, aerosol valves, accessories and atmospheric pumps for the prestige and mass-market segments of the perfume and cosmetics markets. Aptar Charleval has a molding activity (with some fifteen molding presses) and an assembly activity, as well as a decoration activity for small mini-packaging bottles and airless products. Some 70 people work on a shared basis at the three sites, with functions pooled and poolable for the three entities. For example, the Verneuil site includes a coloring activity with two extruders, one of which was previously located at the Le Neubourg site. More and more interconnections are also being established with Aptar Vaudreuil, a site dedicated to pharmaceutical products which employs 1,200 people. A week or two is all it takes to restart production with molds from another Aptar plant. Molds which may also come from other Aptar European sites. For Jean-Noël Coninx, Aptar Beauty's Director of Operations for Normandy, the ambition of this Normandy hub is to become, within five years, a global benchmark for its prestige customers in perfumery and cosmetics, in terms of innovation, quality and service. |
Yaël Zajac
