Interview with Adrien GEIGER, CEO of L’OCCITANE en Provence - Vogue Business in China

Indeed, this is the first time for me to be here. I didn't know L'Occitane en Provence has a hotel in Provence. Could you tell me a little bit the history of this place? We actually purchased this Couvent des Minimes more than 15 years ago. We did three renovations, and this is now a fantastic hotel with a fantastic spa and beautiful rooms, Michelin-star restaurants. We invested a lot in this hotel to bring to life what L'Occitane tomorrow will be. Provence is about craftsmanship, about art. People ask me, 'What is the luxury of Provence?' and then I said, 'Well, come to Couvent des Minimes because you'll see that luxury is not about abundance, it's about simplicity.' So for us, this hotel Couvent des Minimes is a great source of inspiration for our own team to understand where we want to go. We have actually developed some little treat massages that could be offered at store level. We will look at the holistic experience in store to bring to life this Provence atmosphere. What touches your emotion when you come here to Provence? To the rest of the world, this will be of course highlighted. So with this hotel, could I say L'Occitane en Provence is more than a beauty brand? It's like a Provence lifestyle brand that you want to build.

In two years time, L'Occitane will celebrate its 50-year anniversary. So we take this as a perfect timing to show to the world that L'Occitane can be a brand that has not only 50 years of experience and heritage but can also be relevant to our consumers today. Because what is super beautiful is that our heritage, the culture of Provence, really matches with today's aspiration of younger customers: the way we look at life, the well-being, how we approach time, space. We know basically key ingredients like lavender, almond, immortelle making up the DNA of L'Occitane en Provence.

One of the greatest richness of Provence is the biodiversity, the flora. Why the plants are so great here, especially in the north of Provence, is because the conditions here are super harsh. Immortelle is a flower that is very well known for very nice, interesting skin properties. Immortelle grows in Corsica in a very harsh environment, is able to survive. We know that it naturally produces all the elements and molecules that will help it survive in this very harsh environment. That's what we look for. So then we have a team of eco-extraction that have a lot of different tools to extract molecules from the plant, always being very kind to nature, and to figure out what are the right molecules that we need. So our team extracts some plants, others are working with producers on the field to be sure that we will have the best ingredients and with the most natural practices in terms of agriculture. And we also work on the fragrances because we want very pleasant and nice fragrances to put in our formulas, to have pleasure, efficacy, and sustainability. So we go both ways: we bring to life with our R&D into our products. So you have on one side the R&D team here who brings to the table fantastic ingredients, and then also of course we have the market, the countries who understand really well our consumers and the competition landscape and see potential gaps or potential opportunities.

B Corp is not a goal, it's a journey. It's a movement. And to stay B Corp, we need to improve in all our criteria in the next three years. One of the biggest works we did in the past, I talked to you last time as I said, we worked a lot on packaging. I guess you know, our oil which is a big hit in China, we have just launched a new e-refill made out of 100% recycled plastic and is 100% recyclable again. This shea butter hand cream is now in a fully recyclable plastic tube. Then we kept on working really hard on biodiversity, which is one of the big pillars. You know, regenerative agriculture that we're expanding in the region of Provence but also globally with OP2, I mentioned to you last time, One Planet Business for Biodiversity. So for example, this land is completely covered with a lot of different plants. We planted it to take care of the soil and to grow completely naturally this herb chart. There is no pesticide, there is nothing, just natural practices. So organic, fair trade, regenerative agriculture are the key certifications for us for our key ingredients. So for me, L'Occitane en Provence being a leader in regenerative agriculture can really have a fantastic impact to the rest of the world if we manage to expand these agriculture practices. What we are working on in the past months is to basically create business cases where we show that actually regenerative agriculture is profitable.

I will say that L'Occitane en Provence is about sharing precious moments with simplicity.