Manufacture de Prémery – Design-led, functional objects in wood

Optimal valuation the oak raw material is one of the Charlois group’s core commitments. We recycle 100% of our wood raw material and almost 90% of this is in-house.

We primarily aim to recycle the by-products from the Group’s stave mills (coquerons, short off-cuts, shavings, sawdust and sweepings), which make up 35% of the volume of oak used in primary processing. These offcuts, known as “by-products”, are mainly recycled externally into fuel, chipboard, etc.

One of our aims is to find a way of recycling these by-products that is increasingly more qualitative. That’s why we approached the Manufacture de Prémery to create a range of design-led, functional wooden objects made from these PEFC-certified French oak offcuts. Victor Campion, Manufacture de Prémery’s coordinator and a graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs de Paris (EnsAD), is the person in charge of design and product development. As a first step, the workshop launched the production of several prototypes, including a cutting board, a candle holder and salad servers made from wood cuttings.

These wooden objects, whose shape or laser marking is reminiscent of the stylised trees that make up the Fonds Charlois logo, will shortly go on sale in the Fonds Charlois pour l’Art et la Forêt shop.

As well as recycling raw materials, this partnership also has a social and local aspect to it, as the Manufacture de Prémery is a workshop attached to the EBE58, a not-for-profit association that is involved in the Territoire “Zéro Chômeur de Longue Durée” (Zero Long-Term Unemployed Area) experiment currently being conducted in Prémery.

This is a project with environmental, local and social benefits, the results of which will soon be visible in Murlin!