Sleever® celebrates its 50th anniversary this year!

The Sleever Group is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! An anniversary that celebrates its expertise in sleeve technology, heat-shrinkable labels, its constant research into innovations, and its international development serving the finest brands in the world of Beauty and Wines & Spirits.

Explanations by Eric Fresnel, owner and President.

Question: You’re celebrating your fiftieth anniversary this year! Has it been a true saga, one that’s both family-oriented, economic, and technical?

Eric Fresnel: Sleever is a family group that began as a startup and, as our baseline indicates, has been combining science and emotion for 50 years: “science creates emotion, emotion inspires science.” Today, we are present on five continents. This global presence allows us to be close to our customers. We have been established in the North American market for over 25 years and we support the development of Luxury Beauty and Wine & Spirits Brands. The innovation, creativity, and expertise of our Group (over 250 patents, its exclusive material formulations) combined with the technological mastery of the entire value chain, processing, and equipment manufacturing, help brands strengthen their sensory identity and allow them to create a unique relationship with their consumers. The sleeve offers solutions for personalization, dynamism, and security. We are therefore celebrating our fiftieth anniversary.

50 years of innovation and Sleeve developments

Fifty years of international development, notably thanks to flagship events such as the Luxe Pack trade shows and, more specifically, the Luxe Pack NY trade show, in which we have participated since the very first edition twenty years ago. Fifty years of innovations that have marked the world of Luxury by supporting Brands in their search for differentiation and storytelling. We can recall in this regard some of our innovations inspired by the timeless codes of luxury, such as PureWhite®, a porcelain finish with the YON-KA brand for a limited edition designed by the illustrator Fifi Mandirac.

SkinEffect®, with its 3D sensory and tactile effects, chosen by ORIBE to create the 10th anniversary collector’s item for its texturizing hair product by reproducing festive black and gold sequins. We can also mention for champagne, the launch 13 years ago now, the creation of the IceClub® product, designed to dress the famous ICE IMPERIAL from MOET & CHANDON in opaque white, and which has since become emblematic of this consumption on ice.

Question: Fifty years marked by rewards shared with your teams and your customers!

Eric Fresnel: That’s right! This recognition is also thanks to all our collaborators and their commitment. We must commend this team effort and continuous pursuit of excellence, which are the keys to our success! It has allowed us to receive numerous awards, such as the Formes de Luxe prize in 2006 for the Flower By Kenzo packaging, which combines both the expression of the brand’s image, the protection of the perfume, and the shielding of the fragrance from light.
We have also received many accolades for the Canne Bleue editions of Rhums Clément, which showcased Sleever innovations with a “Bronze Pentaward” in 2015 for a fully textured edition featuring our Skinsense® product, followed by another “Bronze Pentaward” in 2019 for a version evocative of porcelain bottles—one of the first applications of our IceClub® product in the spirits sector—and a PLD certificate in 2021 for a festive and sensory creation dressed with blue metal and gold glitter.
Not to forget a “Red Dot Award” in 2018 for the limited edition Laolu by Belvédère. And since we are celebrating the Group that organizes the Luxe Pack fairs and publishes the Formes de Luxe magazine, it’s worth recalling our Formes de Luxe prize in 2020 for the exceptional “Signature” cuvée by Moët & Chandon, for which we brought together the best of our expertise and products.

Question: What is Sleever’s economic weight today?

Eric Fresnel: It’s worth remembering that we are the creator of the concept and the innovative driver of this sleeve technology. We currently generate 70% of our revenue from exports, including nearly 20% in North America. Our offering includes sleeves, as well as the manufacturing of dedicated machines for their implementation and services. The Group employs 1,000 people, generates annual revenue of €150 million, including €8 million dedicated to research and development, and has eleven industrial sites in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

Question: You are present in many markets and you provide turnkey solutions!

Eric Fresnel: Indeed, our expertise spans multiple markets, ranging from luxury and premium markets such as Wines & Spirits, Perfumes, Skincare, and Makeup, to demanding and very diverse markets such as Pharmaceuticals.
The group’s technical expertise across this entire value chain, with the integration of all business lines, allows us to offer turnkey solutions to luxury brands and players, with equipment that integrates the circular economy and carbon footprint reduction. The integration of specific modules such as marking systems (code, serialization, etc.) for traceability and late differentiation offers great flexibility.

Question: Issues related to the environment and decarbonization have become major ?

Eric Fresnel: It’s obvious! We can say that our commitment to the ecological transition goes back more than twenty years! As part of their CSR policy, Luxury Brands have for several years been orienting their packaging and product strategy towards specific solutions built around the famous “3Rs,” for which we have designed specific responses:

• Recycling: In essence, the sleeve, an adhesive-free label, is a temporary, identifiable, and separable addition to primary packaging. This characteristic allows us to offer 360° packaging and decoration solutions while ensuring packaging recyclability.
  To enable brands to integrate the circular economy with their PET packaging, we have developed the LDPET® product, which promotes the closed-loop recyclability of PET packaging, EPBP in Europe, and APR in the USA.
• Reuse: We are continually incorporating more recycled materials into our sleeves and offer brands a range of packaging, security, and promotional products incorporating 30% PCR certified by RecyClass®. We offer sleeves with pre-cut perforation systems to separate the sleeve from its packaging after use, facilitating their separation and the reuse of primary packaging.
• Reduction: we are strongly committed to this eco-design approach which involves reducing material and thickness, to move towards carbon neutrality. Our LWPET® product offers a 50% reduction in sleeve thickness depending on usage.

Generally speaking, our mission is to monitor market trends and offer our clients solutions that meet their challenges.
In terms of the ecological transition, we have been committed to researching and developing circular economy products for twenty years. This challenge is central to our strategy.

Question: One of your strengths lies in the diversity of your markets and therefore of your offering?

Eric Fresnel: Absolutely. We also support brands in their transition to the digital economy, notably with our latest innovation, KolorSmart®. A cutting-edge technology that offers a unique visual recognition solution and enables the brand to provide consumers with a phygital journey, maintaining the connection that unites them to the brand from the point of sale to their home and vice versa. Thanks to this breakthrough technology, made in France, the connected product—through its graphics—also offers the brand data and visibility on consumer behavior and their purchase intent.
In a context where the multiplication of consumer offers and market atomization have disrupted the product life cycle, understanding the consumer journey, combined with late differentiation, becomes all the more meaningful in this new offering.
Brands must adopt agile and flexible behavior to adjust their production and distribution flows. To help them easily respond to demand fluctuations, we offer full-service solutions. For 50 years, we have prioritized a close client approach in finishing and have developed our industrial capacity to integrate into this operating mode, which incorporates the brand and product image, marketing, and packaging—without neglecting the management of component flows and logistics within the supply chain.