Christophe Bénéton, who has chaired the Packaging Division of the Fédération Nationale du Bois since June 2024, talks about the division’s presence at the ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS trade fair and the particularities of a sector that is already well organised on the subject of reuse.

How is the Fédération Nationale du Bois structured?
It’s organised into 8 divisions to represent each of our business sectors: Forestry, Hardwoods, Softwoods, Secondary Processing, Flooring, Traders, Plywood and finally the Packaging division, which I’ve had the honour of chairing for a few weeks now. This division comprises two committees: a Pallet Committee and a Light Packaging Committee.

How important is the Packaging Division within the wood industry?
The Packaging Sector, and in particular the pallet sector, represents around 600 companies and over 12,000 jobs in France, with a consolidated turnover of just over €2 billion. France discovered the pallet 80 years ago when American troops landed, and today almost 95% of products are transported on pallets worldwide. The commission therefore plays a very important role within the FNB.

What action is the cluster taking vis-à-vis the industry and the public authorities?
We’re dealing with a highly volatile market, so we need to be very agile. First of all, we need to promote the environmental benefits of pallets. The other challenge is to compete on a European scale. With this in mind, we have set out several strategic priorities for the Packaging Division and the Pallet Committee.

The first is to help players in the industry to integrate the value of extra-financial criteria: to map out the path to decarbonisation, to roll out the Bois de France brand, to support the implementation of the CSRD (ed. European directive on the publication of sustainability information by companies), as well as providing support on social issues, which is crucial in our business, which is a local business with a strong local presence and jobs that cannot be relocated. The idea is also to work on the competitiveness of the sector by helping our members to optimise processes and improve quality. This mainly involves benchmarking, economic reports and studies that show where we are not so good and where we could improve to be more competitive with our European neighbours.

The other key area, and by no means the least, is to work on innovation. The business is changing fast and there’s still a long way to go. We really want to work on all aspects of innovation, starting with artificial intelligence, but also traceability to meet regulatory demands, diversification of raw materials and new technologies for manufacturing or repairing our pallets.

Lastly, we need to ensure that our products and our companies are promoted and recognised by the logistics industry and public authorities.

In practical terms, how is this promotion carried out?
It involves a lot of communications and a lot of trade shows. We also organise a biennial event called Futuropalettes, the next edition of which will take place in November 2025. It also involves strengthening our relations with the public authorities, because there are a number of regulations being introduced that could have significant consequences for our businesses. I’m thinking in particular of the RDUE (Regulation against deforestation and forest degradation) and the REP (Extended Producer Responsibility). It’s important to understand that we’ve been repairing pallets for over 30 years, and we make every effort to recondition, repair and recycle the products we make. Today, the reuse rate for pallets is around 80%, and the rest is often reused, mainly for wood energy, but not exclusively. As far as EPR is concerned, the bill currently being drafted aims to force other packaging industries to organise themselves to create reuse and recycling channels. But we’re already organised in this respect, and we have a huge stake in defending our profession and our current organisation and preventing a tax from putting a strain on our business.

What will your presence be like at ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS?
As at last year’s show, we’ll have a stand with other players in the wood packaging industry. We’re organising a conference on Wednesday afternoon at 3pm on the reuse of pallets, to educate people and explain what we’ve been doing for years. Pallets are still a little-known profession, and pallet reuse is even less well known! Once again, we need to explain that a pallet is used to transport products from manufacturers to the point of distribution, and then that the players in the sector go and find these pallets that have already been used once to sort them, repair them and put them back into the cycle.

A manufactured pallet has a lifespan of around 5-6 years, with 4 turns per year (editor’s note: one turn = industrial – distribution – industrial repairer)!

Apart from your presentation, what are you expecting from the show?
Obviously that there will be a lot of people there, but beyond that I’m especially looking forward to finding out all about innovation and the future needs of the market: what will the logistics needs of manufacturers be in 5 or 10 years’ time? This will enable us to provide the best possible support to the players in the industry.

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