Tobacco factory will house latest leathergoods site, Hermès confirms
Luxury group Hermès has confirmed a suggestion that began to circulate in September. When it sets up the latest in a series of new leathergoods factories in France, at Riom, near Clermont-Ferrand, it will do so in a disused tobacco factory in the town.
Tobacco production in Riom ceased in 1975 and, since then, two of the three buildings at the former factory have been converted into apartments. The local authority’s plan always was to try to use the third building to bring some manufacturing activity back to Riom. Hermès’s plan will allow this to happen.
The leathergoods group already has a facility employing 260 skilled artisans at nearby Sayat. Craftspeople from there will help train the new workforce at Riom when production begins there towards the end of 2023 or at the start of 2024. It hopes to create a further 250 jobs in Riom. A first cohort of 23 new artisans has already started training at a provisional site in the town and a further 40 Riom recruits will begin in May.
Hermès has said it prefers to set up new production units for around 250 artisans rather than expand existing sites. Its view is that this helps conserve a spirit of craftsmanship and the human aspect of the work involved in creating high-end leathergoods.
Its managing director for artisan leathergoods and saddlery, Emmanuel Pommier, has said that redeveloping an existing industrial site will be better for Hermès’s carbon footprint than constructing a new factory.
On confirming the choice of the former tobacco factory, he said he liked the building and liked the idea of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the centre of the town. He pointed out that the site is five minutes from Riom’s train station and close to bus routes too.
But he said it was an ambitious project to redevelop the existing site. “Building a new factory would have had a considerably greater impact on our carbon footprint,” Mr Pommier told local media. He said Hermès had decided to be more ambitious and more focused on sustainable development.
Since 2010, Hermès has opened nine new leathergoods factories, creating 2,500 new jobs, taking the total number of leathergoods artisans it employs to 3,600. It is already preparing to open new production sites at Guyenne, near Bordeaux, and at Montereau, south-east of Paris, in 2021. Another at Louviers will follow in 2022, with one in the Ardennes coming on stream in 2023.
The factory in Riom will give the group a total of 22 artisan leathergoods production sites, all of them in France.
