Founded in 1973 in Saint-Pal-de-Chalencon (Haute-Loire) by Pierre Brun, Groupe Velfor is a major player in the world of packaging and the manufacture of technical plastic parts. Despite its evolution, Velfor remains a family business since the shareholders are partly held by the Brun family.

With seven subsidiaries in France (Amandis, Apira Plasturgie, Lider, Creaplast, Velfor Emballage, Velfor Industrie and Velfor Conditionnement), the Velfor group has developed a real synergy and complementarity of processes to meet the requirements of the most specific markets.

Its five sectors of operation are the food industry, the cosmetics industry, industry, mass distribution and health.

The group supports its customers in the development and realisation of their projects involving the transformation of flexible and rigid plastics. The company’s core business is based on the mastery of three technologies:

• Thermoforming: this technique is applied to semi-finished thermoplastic materials such as films, sheets and plates to transform them into 3D objects. The use of this process results from the behaviour of thermoplastic materials which take on a rubbery consistency above their transition temperature and can therefore be easily formed and frozen in this state by cooling. In the use of thin thermoforming, the material is in coil form. It is heated to soften it and then applied to a mould which processes the plastic by suction. What is the advantage of thin thermoforming? it offers indeed higher speed, shorter heating times and a variety of applications.

• High-frequency welding: this technique is used for so-called “polar” plastics in the form of single, semi-rigid or rigid sheets. Thermoplastic materials such as PVC, TPU or EVA are the most commonly used. High frequency welding allows two or more sheets to be joined together by applying an electromagnetic field. The welding zone reproduces the shape of the tooling called electrode. The advantages are numerous: high production rates, moderate tooling costs, very good mechanical resistance of the weld, the possibility of combining flexible sheets with a rigid or even thermoformed product and a customised design.

• Injection: Apira Plasturgie, a subsidiary of Velfor, has been offering its technical know-how since 1991 for the manufacture of plastic products and semi-finished products, by simple injection or overmoulding, thermoplastic and thermoset.

Velfor’s strength lies in the fact that its customers benefit from a single point of contact throughout the collaboration and in offering turnkey solutions.