Frankie Béchereau, the show’s Director and Cosmetic Valley’s Deputy Managing Director
Premium Beauty News - What do you expect of this eighth edition?
Frankie Béchereau - Once again, we will offer a unique vision of the future of the cosmetics industry. Cosmetic 360 is definitely a show like no other: it is neither a packaging show nor an ingredient show. It is not a “trade show”, but a “vision event”. It is a place where you can meet people and companies you don’t see anywhere else. This year, logistics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be in the spotlight: if these fields are not specific to cosmetics, they are key aspects of our sector. Cosmetic 360 is the place par excellence for cross-fertilisation: many of these start-ups, SMEs, and French and global laboratories only attend this show.
After two years of pandemic, the event is extremely promising, as it will host 200 exhibitors. Compared to the 220 participants in 2019, a few Asian companies are missing, in particular Chinese and Japanese ones. But the show will still count 20% of global exhibitors from other European countries, plus from the US and a few Asian countries. In line with our mission, there will be raw material suppliers, testing companies, packaging and service suppliers (logistics, IT support, consulting), and brands.
As for visitors, pre-registrations are also going very well – the number of international visitors is pretty high.
Premium Beauty News - Will there also be a digital version of the event?
Frankie Béchereau - We aim to capitalize on our digital experience, while enjoying the opportunity to meet people physically. In 2020, we had organized a 100% digital event, and in 2021, the show was hybrid: you could plan digital meetings. This year, we designed our own digital platform, which will be available at the end of September, as a tool to prepare and intensify the physical show. It will help companies organize their meetings beforehand and during the event. However, although there will be some content on the platform, we have preferred to organize physical conferences.
Premium Beauty News - Why did you choose to put technological revolutions, in particular AI, at the core of this edition?
Frankie Béchereau - Technologies are very strongly related to competitiveness: AI, data, algorithms, and virtual innovations will transform cosmetic trades. Many resources are available in France and we wanted to have several exhibitors in this sector as a complement to our conference programme, which will deal with many aspects of it.
Several animations will also be dedicated to this theme. An AI animation area with about ten specialized companies was designed in collaboration with Choose Paris Region and Région Île-de-France. At the AI TechCorner, a laboratory of CNRS, the French national centre for scientific research, will introduce a skin diagnosis tool to develop personalized products. This brand new skin imagery technology is combined with skin analysis software. The prototype has not yet been industrialized. And for its 30th anniversary, Greentech will offer visitors to experientially discover how they model new molecules thanks to AI.
Premium Beauty News - This year, the traditional Hackathon will actually be dedicated to AI’s added value for the supply chain and logistics.
Frankie Béchereau - The supply chain is one of the many fields where AI can be used and we are very happy to highlight this theme with our sponsor, the Deret Group, at a time when supplies are under tension.
It also echoes the LIPACO Seine research project (LIPACO stands for Intelligent Logistics for the Perfumes & Cosmetics Industry) in which the Cosmetic Valley took part. The Deret Group will suggest subjects to multidisciplinary teams of students from different schools (engineers, packaging experts, cosmeticians, etc.). The delivery will take place at the end of the show, on October 13, around 5pm.
Premium Beauty News - Open Innovation is still at the core of the show. How will this event be organized this year?
Frankie Béchereau - It follows the same logic: we detect international companies with innovative projects, and then we organize interviews during the show with the companies which subscribed to this service, including Chanel, L’Oréal, LVMH Research, and Pharma & Beauty Group. This year, for this programme, we put an emphasis on digital innovations and the value brought by AI.
Premium Beauty News - The Cosmetic 360 Week will take place in parallel to the show. What is it exactly?
Frankie Béchereau - It is a meeting programme mainly reserved for global players which starts before the show and ends after. It is a whole cosmetics-oriented week which covers the show’s two days, so people can discover laboratories, factories, training centres, and retailers before and after the show. This programme is part of our project to make Cosmetic 360 a specific event dedicated to all aspects of the 21st century cosmetics industry, but also to French excellence in this field.
