Logistics: Essential to La Savonnerie Royale

“ La Savonnerie Royale was born nine years ago from the union of my two passions: French history and Provençal soaps, ” says Christine Vasse, its president and founder. Each fragrance used in the brand’s soaps, creams and candles was developed around a person or place that has left its mark on history. “ For example, the ‘Pétales d’églantine’ fragrance was inspired by Marie-Antoinette,  comments Laetitia El Hammami, a partner at La Savonnerie Royale. The fragrance named ‘Le Bassin de Neptune’ refers to the famous basin at the Palace of Versailles, ‘XIV’ to the Sun King, and ‘Secret Impérial’ to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte... All our cosmetic products are made in France, and our home fragrances are developed in partnership with the historic supplier to royal families, based in Spain. ”.

The fragrances are created with our perfumer in Grasse, on the French Riviera, then sent to one of La Savonnerie Royale’s four production sites, each dedicated to a product type: soaps in Haute-Provence, cosmetics in Yvelines, and home fragrances in Spain. “ Depending on orders and our inventory, we then arrange for our fragrance bases to be transferred to our partner factories to manufacture finished products. We work with several French printers, recognized for their expertise and know-how, for our paper packaging, labels and three-soap gift boxes. We have also used a glass-bottle manufacturer for the past two years. The bottles are first delivered to a specialist in gold enamel decoration in Vendée, before being shipped to our liquid-soap production site. Once the product contents, containers and primary packaging have been completed, the products are sent to a single storage site, where orders are prepared and dispatched to the various points of sale in France and abroad (hotels, luxury hotels, castle shops and perfumeries), or to individual customers who have ordered through La Savonnerie Royale’s website. “ This direct sales channel accounts for around 6 % of our business,  estimates Christine Vasse. In our 210 m² warehouse, spread over three floors and located in central France, we therefore prepare parcels with great care because in our business, packaging—sometimes customized—embodies the excellence of our products and extends our luxury-company image. The care we put into presentation must not be undone by careless transport. ”

As is customary in the luxury industry, many figures are kept confidential. “ I can nevertheless tell you that our double-digit growth over several years is leading us to consider relocating closer to the Île-de-France region, to optimize transport to our various points of sale in France and air shipments from Roissy to various European countries, the United States, Japan and the Middle East…, while also reducing our carbon footprint by cutting road miles as much as possible, since Île-de-France is more centrally located for all these shipments. ”.

At present, several tens of thousands of products are stored by a logistics provider located near Le Mans. “ The most complex part is managing the different routes, for the finished products themselves on the one hand, but also for their containers and the various components that make them up, such as bottle pumps, for example,  explains Laetitia El Hammami. We therefore also need to be highly precise with this upstream logistics, otherwise we risk disrupting our production. ”

Before founding La Savonnerie Royale, Christine Vasse co-founded another company in the technology sector. “ There, I learned that I no longer wanted to manage logistics in-house,  she says. We therefore chose to outsource everything related to transport and logistics, which is a major issue for us both in terms of its cost to our business and our CSR policy. ”