a Drôme company launches into puzzles made in France

It was the missing piece of the 100% French puzzles. Until this year, France did not have a high-performance machine for cutting cardboard. The country is however the European champion of games with a boom in sales of puzzles of more than 120% during the first confinement.

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In the Cartonnage de Vaucanson factory, more than 5 000 m² of buildings, since this summer people have come to admire this special machine that makes it possible to make puzzles. “Here is the French puzzleproudly explains Antoine Lathoud, director of the site. The French puzzle is also in men, it’s fine to have the machine. To be a good adjuster, to be independent and to know how to adjust all the specificities of the machine, it takes at least a year.”

For now, only one person is able to operate the machine. Thirty-six years of seniority in a few days, Éric Galvez is an expert in cardboard cutting machines but he has been waiting for this one for a long time. “I confess that as a child I always asked myself the question : how is the puzzle made? How was the machine made? Today I have my answer, I know it and I’m driving it on top of that, it’s wonderful. It’s a real toy”says Éric Galvez.

A high-performance toy that performs 800 puzzles per hour, twice as much as a basic machine. It applies hundreds of tons of pressure to cut in one fell swoop 1 000 pieces all different whereas in an ordinary puzzle, each shape comes back five times. Of course, this machine has a cost : over 400 000 euros. Reasoned risk-taking, according to Véronique Debroise, the owner of the site: “Two years ago there was only one factory that had a very old press. And we were going to Spain, the Netherlands, Poland or China to make puzzles instead.”

“There is an awareness that having products manufactured on the other side of the planet is not very reasonable. I realized this thirty years ago, that’s why I I’ve always invested in factories and really like production.”

Véronique Debroise, CEO

at franceinfo

It now remains to make this large investment profitable. The very first 100% French puzzles are beginning to be marketed by Sentosphere, the other company in the group which designs creative games. The first external order has just arrived. The revival of made in France must do the rest. It will be necessary to sell at least two million boxes before depreciating the machine.