Added value, global diversity

Atlanbois, co-organisers of the Carrefour International du Bois (CIB), had multiple cause for celebration at the French show's gala event.

For a start, it was an opportunity to welcome guests from the exhibition in Nantes, in June to their new headquarters, where they hosted the reception. Batîment B is a showcase for timber generally, and French timber in particular. An award winning design from Barré Lambot architects, it features a frame in externally exposed Douglas fir glulam and internally expressed solid oak beams, showing France's strengths as a hardwood and softwood producer.

"The building, like the show, also underlines both the beauty of wood and its technical performance," said Atlanbois's international marketing executive Sam Padden. "Besides looking stunning, it's highly energy efficient and has a small carbon footprint, partly due to the timber being locally sourced."

Atlanbois' new home is clearly an expression of the success of the CIB too. The event grew even through the global downturn and another cause for celebration this year was that, despite France's economy and construction sector still recovering only slowly, it broke yet more records. Exhibitor numbers rose to 530, pushing up total floor area by 2%. And underlining that Atlanbois's decision to build in wood is part of a wider trend, the timber construction Techniques & Solutions area took 10% more space, with 120 stands. It also saw record audiences at its conference too.

Most importantly, visitor numbers were up 2% to 10,215.

"In post-show questionnaires exhibitors report their busiest CIB so far," said Ms Padden. "Critically. nearly three-quarters of visitors were decision makers and more orders were taken on stands than since before the recession."

CIB also reinforced its status as an increasingly international event, with the proportion of exhibitors and visitors from abroad increasing, to 30% and 22% respectively.

"It is now a worldwide forum," said Marie- Yvonne Charlemagne, finance director of tropical hardwood and plywood producer and distributor Rougier. "We've seen customers from as far apart as the UK, South America, China and the rest of South-east Asia."

To this international visitor mix, Florence Perrucaud of French sawmiller and further processed timber specialist Ducerf added the Middle East and India.

A central factor cited for the CIB's overall success is that it has remained an exclusively timber event. But also critical, say its fans, is that within this all-wood formula, the product mix has diversified and developed in line with technical development in the French and wider international timber sector, notably in the structural arena. The former alone was reported by CIB president Pierre Piveteau, to be investing €300-350m annually in production facilities and R&D. This evolution was more evident than ever at this year's exhibition. Ducerf was strongly marketing its range of French hardwoods, notably oak, but equal space was devoted to its laminated and finger-jointed panels and scantlings from value-added arm Bois Profilés, plus thermo-treated hardwoods from its Bois Durables de Bourgogne joint venture. Among the latter, getting its first CIB airing was 3Plis, an ultra-stable three-layer laminated panel furniture product. And new from the thermo-treatment facility was more highly designed and profiled "Special Inspirations" cladding in oak, poplar and ash.

"We're now 50/50 sawn timber and value-added products and see particular potential in thermo-treated products," said Ms Perrucaud. "We're increasing capacity and trialling new species, including UK sycamore."

Further evidence of market bullishness and commitment to the exhibition, said Ms Padden, was companies taking bigger stands.

One company taking a sizeable space was multi-faceted softwood sawmill and finished product manufacturer PiveteauBois. In fact, it had two stands, one for its more consumer-facing products, from Wex composite decking and cladding, to fencing and garden buildings, the second under its Farges sawmill banner, featuring sawn and heavier duty laminated and finger-jointed construction products.

The former also featured more 'designer' cladding in ultra-fashionable shades, including grey impregnated pine Vibrato.

Stylish grey was also order of the day from finished cladding and decking specialist Sivalpb. It featured new finger-jointed acacia and red cedar products, with particular focus on vertically mounted ranges, plus its expanding thermo-treated timber range and wider 150mm Siberian cladding boards. But the centrepiece was Tabacoa, a vertical, and 'innovatively profiled' grey Douglas fir board.

"There's increasing demand for cladding that differentiates a building," said service manager Elisabeth Berger. "Specifiers also like the way untreated timber silvers with age, but not that this happens unevenly. We create the same aesthetic, but a lasting, uniform shade over the surface."

French beech possibly loses out in market profile compared to oak. But a new promotional body aiming to end that is Terres de Hêtre (Beech Country), a consortium of mills, end users and research bodies in the Vosges region. Its stand featured a range of products in the species, plus displays from its annual architectural design competition.

"Engineered correctly, there's enormous potential to expand use of French beech in France and abroad, particularly structurally" said TdH director Stephanie Rauscent.

One stand attracting particular interest in the Techniques & Solutions part of the show was French "massive wood" construction specialist Tot.M. It produces structural cross-laminated wood panels in Scandinavian and Breton Sitka spruce fixed with hidden aluminium alloy connectors that can be cut with a timber saw.

"The end product is very robust, with the added environmental benefit of not using adhesives," said engineer Tugdual de Parscau.

"The panels are up to 3x6m and from 115mm to 345mm thick and we're using them in increasingly large scale projects, with six to eight storeys a possibility."

Europe-Wide Appeal
A stalwart of Carrefour due to its strong business in France and across continental Europe, is Osmose and it put on a prominent show again. Its main focus was copper carbonate Celcure C4 treatment, a product still awaiting UK market approvals (which the company hopes to secure soon), but now selling widely in Europe.

"Its appeal is down to a combination of performance, easy end-of-life disposability, and overall low environmental impact," said southern Europe regional director Charles Chalmers. "It's also formulated to tackle copper-resistant organisms."

Central to the display from Belgian international importer van Hoorebeke was its Heaveatech Indonesian-made rubberwood engineered decking, billed as the product for the times, given sustainability and legality concerns over some tropical products, especially post-EU Timber Regulation.

"It's on a price level with ipé," said general manager Benoit Strauven. "But its environmental credentials and design attributes are really appealing to specifiers."

However, expressing no doubt about the prospects of its tropical plywood and hardwood product range, particularly given that it is now 100% third-party legally and sustainably certified, was Rougier.

"The market has not been easy, particularly France, but we're now seeing demand rising worldwide, and prices picking up a little, and we're responding," said Ms Charlemagne.

"Our Mbang, Cameroon, and newly modernised Mevang, Gabon, mills are back to full production and our Mbang valueadded plant, making decking and fingerjointed components, is developing well. We're looking to supply this facility with sapele from our Mouale, Congo mill, where we've added a second line, and our Djoum mill in Cameroon is also being modernised."

The show, itself, she added, had been busy. "We've had strong interest in our further processed products, such as sapele glulam and tali KD decking and, we've received very positive enquiries, including from the UK."

Overall, the UK may still not account for a large percentage of CIB visitors, but the organisers and other exhibitors said it is increasing. The latter included French oak and beech supplier LBSA and Belgian square edged oak specialist Hublet.

LBSA identified the UK as a target market.

"We're already selling kiln-dried square edged oak to flooring, kitchen cabinet and stair makers," said president Patrice Janody. Hublet too reported good demand from UK flooring producers including solid 27mm material, but also oak lamellas for engineered products.

The show organisers, meanwhile, were quietly confident of a still stronger UK presence at the next CIB in 2016. In fact, after another buoyant event, they were upbeat about prospects overall. They start booking stands next April.