Bourquin Imprimeries, established in Reims since 1895, now produces self-adhesive labels for champagne houses, wine producers and industry. Launched a year ago, this activity already represents, according to L'Union, 5% of annual sales for the company, which will achieve sales of 14.5 million euros in 2024.
Run by Pierre-Olivier Gagelin and his brother Victor, the 85-employee family business still manufactures secure documents âeuros tax stamps, visas, luncheon vouchers, diplomas âeuros but was looking to diversify its production. With Bourquin Ãtiquette, the company is mainly targeting the Champagne region, where it now has around sixty customers, two-thirds of whom are in the wine industry, according to the company L'Union .
The development of this activity has been accompanied by a 1.5 million euro investment in staff training and the acquisition of a digital gilding press.
Bourquin also took over Imprimerie des Docks, a Reims-based company specializing in hot foil stamping. The three-strong workshop, run by Stéphane Jaworski, was already working closely with Bourquin.
This integration enables "bring together the best of both teams: industrial capacity and traditional know-how, perfectly adapted to the Champagne wine sector", says Bourquin Imprimeries in a LinkedIn post.
"With this new activity, Bourquin affirms its ambition to sublimate the excellence of products thanks to personalized, top-of-the-range and environmentally-friendly labels".
In other regions, the label business is experiencing a dynamic trend. In Pas-de-Calais, the Léonce Deprez printing works, which has specialized in magazine printing for 102 years, has just opened a workshop dedicated to self-adhesive labels. The unit, called Les Étiquettes de Léonce, targets small breweries and regional producers, with short production runs and very short lead-times.
In both Reims and Wancourt, these two initiatives reflect a move towards diversification by printers historically positioned in other markets. Faced with already structured competition in the self-adhesive label sector, particularly in champagne and craft beer, these players are banking on technical specialization and responsiveness to establish themselves on a long-term basis.
