This is now offered by a small business, the result of a commercialization project involving natural coloring materials, initiated at CRITT Horticulture of Poitou-Charentes. Called Couleurs de Plantes, i.e., the Color of Plants - a very evocative name -, the Rochefort based business now has five employees. Madder and reseda, dyer's broom and calliopsis, orange cosmos, and more recently sorghum dye from a plant mix are only some of the plants that the small team is working on. The cosmetics and textile are the main industries interested in the small business's production.
Patrick Brennac, the man heading Couleurs de Plantes, a 2005 spin-off from CRITT Horticulture, has been working on this topic for about ten years. The young business is the outcome of a dozen years of work put in by a team of engineers and technicians at the regional facility. Their task was to identify dye plant species select the most interesting ones, grow them and develop special methods for extracting the coloring molecules before running application tests. "Of course, in France university laboratories have long been working on natural coloring families. However, the research is still very fundamental," he underscored. So this is the first time that a team has tackled the subject with a technical-economic and industrial approach.
Coloring Plant Extracts, Powdered Pigments and Pigment Pastes
As projects were moving apace and contacts with industry operators were legion, the idea of setting up a business emerged. It was slated to handle the manufacture and marketing of the products. "Support from CRITT, which acted as an incubator, was a major asset," said Patrick Brenac who pointed out that before becoming a business, the Couleurs de Plantes project had twice won the prize at the Ministry for Research and OSEA-ANVAR's national contest for support to the creation of innovative technology businesses, in 2003 and in 2005. "The founding leaders are CRITT Horticulture Director Anne de La Sayette and myself," he explained.
Couleurs de Plantes offers coloring plant extracts, powdered pigments and other insoluble coloring products and pigment pastes. The plant extracts are obtained by the selective extraction of coloring materials from selected dye plants. The plant extracts go mainly to the cosmetic industry or are used to dye natural or synthetic fibers. The powdered pigments are dispersed in binders and traditional media, not only for interior decoration paints and coatings but also for the graphics arts, decorative leisure activities, the coloring of biomaterials and plastics. Products earmarked for the cosmetic industry are used for the formulation of make-up. The pigment pastes, which are derived from powdered pigments, are chiefly for the industrial paint and ink industry.
Cosmetics, A Flagship Industry
"At the beginning, we found 750 plant species that were sources of coloring materials. We selected about one hundred and took their seeds. Some forty were grown on a test plot located in the Vienne département. Today, eight species are farmed for the business," summed up the Director. This approach prompted the Couleurs de Plantes management to set up a farmers' network working in partnership with the business and a network of subcontracts specializing in colorant extraction. "This is how a unique production chain of plant coloring materials was set up. It had to acquire special equipment to manufacture certain products."
Madder and reseda, the two pillars of coloring history, are among the crops as are less exploited species such as dyer's broom, or less well-known species such as orange cosmos or calliopsis. "We have recently been taking a closer look at sorghum dye that results from the adaptation of certain African sorghum species and their cross-pollination with a French strain selection protected by CRITT and CIRAD's application for plant certification." As most of the crops are grown with environmentally friendly methods, this year we are launching our first organic farming crops. The extraction processes are environmentally friendly and use renewable and recyclable solvents (water, agriculture alcohol). Our extraction partners are also involved and are ISO 14.000 certified.
Half the plants are grown in Poitou-Charentes. They are supplemented by plant materials from warm regions, such as already available woods or tannic extracts that the business uses in many different ways in different areas. Today Couleurs de Plantes has a fairly wide range of some twenty different extracts and about fifteen pigments to meet cosmetic and textile industry operator demand as well as the demand from the paint industry and an industry of materials that is looking at a rosy future. "Nevertheless, the cosmetics industry generates the lion's share of our sales figure," stated Patrick Brennac.
