‘The French folks need to save us’: assist pours in for glassmaker Duralex

[ad_1] D rop a Duralex glass and it'll almost definitely bounce, not break. The French firm itself has tumbled a number of instances previously twenty years and at all times bounced again, however by no means fairly as spectacularly as when, earlier this month, it requested the general public for cash.

An attraction for €5m (£4.4m) of emergency funding to safe the rapid way forward for the glassworks took simply 5 hours and 40 minutes to succeed in its goal. Inside 48 hours, the whole quantity pledged had topped €19m.

François Marciano, 59, the director common of Duralex, mentioned the response had astonished everybody on the firm. “We thought it could take 5 or 6 weeks to boost the €5m. When it reached almost €20m we needed to say cease. Sufficient,” he mentioned.

François Marciano, chief govt of Duralex, holds up a Picardie glass. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian As a workers cooperative, €5m is the utmost Duralex can settle for in public funding beneath monetary guidelines.

Beloved French model Point out Duralex to any French particular person and they are going to be transported again to childhood and a faculty canteen. The model evokes a mixture of nostalgia and satisfaction and is an emblem of French patriotism and industrial savoir faire.

“We’re like Proust’s madeleines,” Marciano mentioned. “The French folks need to save us. They're fed up with factories closing and the nation’s industries declining.”

On the Duralex manufacturing unit on an industrial property in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin on the banks of the Loire simply outdoors Orléans, Marciano says he and his colleagues are “floating on a cloud” after the attraction.

Eighteen months in the past, Marciano oversaw a workers buyout of the corporate, which had been positioned in receivership for the fourth time in 20 years. Immediately, 180 of the 243 staff are “associates” within the firm.

Suliman El Moussaoui, the chief of the CFDT union at Duralex. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Suliman El Moussaoui, 44, a union consultant on the manufacturing unit the place he has labored for 18 years, mentioned the attraction had prompted “a tsunami of orders, so many who we’re struggling to maintain up. Each time the corporate is talked about on the tv or radio we now have extra orders. It’s been wonderful.”

Contained in the manufacturing unit, a easy however magical alchemy takes place. A mixture of sand, soda ash and limestone, the precise proportions of that are a carefully guarded secret, is heated in an enormous overhead oven to 1,400C. Glowing globs of molten glass drop into iron casts which are blasted with a flame of fuel. The red-hot glass is immediately pounded into form, sprung from the mould, snatched by metallic pincers and positioned on a conveyor belt.

The long-lasting Picardie glasses popping out of the 1,440-degree oven {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Duralex manufacturing video The method has modified little since Duralex – which is claimed to take its identify from the Latin expression Dura lex, sed lex, which means “the legislation is harsh, however it's the legislation” – opened in 1945. When the Guardian visited, the manufacturing line was turning out small clear glasses within the Provence vary.

Staff within the manufacturing unit beginning a brand new manufacturing of glasses. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Every glass is fastidiously inspected. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian A employee brandishing tongs lifted a glass to the sunshine to examine it for faults. Throughout a manufacturing run, greater than a dozen samples of no matter is being made – glasses, plates, bowls – will likely be randomly eliminated and subjected to emphasize assessments. Within the high quality management room, they are going to be heated to 150C then plunged into chilly water to see in the event that they resist a thermic shock, and dropped from the peak of a kitchen counter on to a metallic sheet to see in the event that they shatter. They are going to be examined for stackability after which weighed and the glass thickness measured. In the event that they go, they're thrown in a bin and the manufacturing line is given a thumbs up. In the event that they fail, all the pieces stops and the machines are recalibrated.

‘The final word consuming vessel’ It's not recognized who invented the corporate’s trademark Picardie glass, the tumbler utilized in faculty canteens with a thick curved rim and semi-fluted form that first appeared in 1954. The British design guru Patrick Taylor has ranked the Picardie alongside Levi’s denims and the Swiss Military knife as an icon of contemporary design. Taylor describes it as: “An object whose kind gives the look it was found moderately than designed. It's the final consuming vessel created by man, and of its kind can't be improved.”

The immediately recognisable Picardie glasses. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Duralex says its glass is microwave, freezer and dishwasher-safe and won't flip cloudy or lose its color, which is within the glass moderately than on it. Once they do break, Duralex glasses shatter into small items moderately than shards, lowering the damage danger.

Joël Cardon, 59, who has labored on the manufacturing unit for 35 years, mentioned the hovering price of fuel and electrical energy have been the agency’s largest and most worrying expense.

On his display, the oven containing the liquid glass confirmed a temperature of 1,440C. It could by no means be allowed to chill or the glass will solidify. One other display confirmed the manufacturing unit was utilizing 360 cubic metres of fuel an hour. In line with the regulator Ofgem, the typical UK home makes use of 97.3 cubic metres of fuel a 12 months.

Duralex’s oven, within the background, is held at a temperature of 1,440C. {Photograph}: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Final weekend, potential buyers have been requested to come back good on their guarantees on a primary come, first served foundation. They are going to be issued with securities that pay 8% curiosity over seven years however give no firm voting rights. The utmost funding was set at €1,000.

“We need to contain as many individuals as attainable however with nearly €20m in pledges clearly some folks will likely be upset,” Marciano mentioned.

For the reason that firm turned a workers cooperative, turnover has elevated by 22% and Marciano mentioned he hoped Duralex could be breaking even by 2027.

The €5m raised will likely be used to modernise the manufacturing unit and develop new merchandise. These embrace a partnership with the Élysée presidential palace store to promote a set of three of its Gigogne glasses in crimson, white and blue, marked RF for République Française.

Set of three Gigogne glasses in Tricolor, marketed on-line for €24.90 {Photograph}: boutique.elysee.fr Duralex plans to fee moulds to make “pint” glasses with a measure line for British pubs and bars and the US, each areas recognized by the corporate as untapped markets.

“Promoting overseas is harder as a result of there isn’t the identical nostalgia for Duralex as there's in France,” mentioned Vincent Vallin, the pinnacle of technique and growth. “Curiosity within the firm is excessive and that is constructive, however now we now have to concentrate on rising gross sales.”