THE goal of an independent, family-owned business like French skincare brand Caudalie “is to grow in a meaningful way”, says co-founder Bertrand Thomas, 52, who argues that “it’s not all about the money – there’s something else”.

“If you decide that this is very important, and you don’t want to compromise your financial independence, then you have to adjust the growth and adjust the strategy,” he says, noting that “you have to choose your battles, and it sets the pace”.

While he tells The Business Times that Caudalie is aiming for 15 per cent annual growth over the next 3 years, he adds: “We set up this kind of number, but the truth is that what matters to us is: What’s the recipe, and how are we going to achieve it?”

His answer lies in the philosophy of his wife, Mathilde, with whom he set up the Paris-based, vineyard-inspired brand in 1995: “It’s the most effective products, in natural formulas, with sustainable packaging. That’s my wife’s vision... This is what makes us unique and different, so it’s super important that it’s family-owned.”

So far, this vision appears to have paid off for the Thomas family.

Though Caudalie does not publicly disclose its financial information, Reuters reported in 2013 that revenue was estimated to reach 130 million euros that year – and “I can say it’s a lot more now”, an otherwise tight-lipped Thomas tells BT.

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Thomas was in Singapore in late September – his first time in town since the Covid-19 pandemic stymied travel – to suss out opportunities around the region.

The company taps its trademarked “Vinothérapie” spas worldwide “to establish the brand locally, to root the brand locally to meet the customers”, as Thomas puts it, but the Asian spa presence has been limited to Hong Kong and Seoul for now.

Calling the Singapore business “prosperous”, he says that “it’s probably the right time to try to root the brand more here with a spa or with a boutique”.

Such an expansion would mark a new step for Caudalie’s presence in South-east Asia, where its high-end skincare products – which are touted as featuring grape-derived ingredients, while free of chemicals like parabens, phthalates and mineral oils – retail exclusively through LVMH-owned beauty chain Sephora.

With Asia now making up 15 per cent of the global business – up from 5 per cent a decade ago – Thomas tells BT that that “we’re very ambitious for this part of the world” because of sophisticated skincare consumers and “a lot of innovation here”.

He expects the European and American markets to continue driving growth in the near term: “There’s too many things that we don’t control to expect growth from Asia in 2023,” he says, citing issues such as the lack of outbound Chinese travel.

Still, he sees encouraging trends in the regional market – in particular, a growing interest in sustainability, as Thomas found that Caudalie’s participation in recent “clean beauty” campaigns at Sephora “generated a lot of buzz around the brand”.

Indeed, the Thomases have presented sustainability as a key pillar of the brand strategy for Caudalie, which joined 1% for the Planet – a push for businesses to commit 1 per cent of sales to environmental causes – in 2012.

The company has also launched a zero-waste push – it moved this year to use only recyclable, reusable, and recycled materials in packaging – and Thomas says that he expects plastic to be phased out from Caudalie products over the next 10 years.

Carbon neutrality and net-zero plastic are all “things we would like to do” with the help of in-house engineers, suppliers, and other partners, he tells BT.

When asked how the company might foster broader environmental change in the industry, Thomas says that it goes beyond the direct impact of individual efforts such as tree-planting initiatives: “What matters is to set the example. What matters is to show people that it’s possible to have a successful company, to grow the revenue, but in a meaningful way – without damaging the planet.”

That’s even as Caudalie is on the cusp of launching what he calls “a plan for next year, to reorganise the company” as inflation pushes up business costs.

With Caudalie’s manufacturing costs already higher by 8 per cent in the past 12 months, Thomas says that the aim – at a time he characterises as “very strategic moment now for companies” – will be “to invest in new tools, make some productivity gains, save time wherever we can save time, and really choose our battles”.

He also teases “new packets, new molecules, amazing stuff coming up” by 2025, including products that are tailored for Asian users.

Meanwhile, resisting the notion that family businesses may be resistant to change, Thomas predicts that innovation in the next 10 years will come from “entrepreneurial, family-owned companies”, since “we have to be super innovative – we have to get out of our comfort zone, explore things and try things and move on”.

Mathilde Thomas previously told Reuters that “we have received expressions of interest from all the big companies, but we are happy to stay independent”.

In the same vein, Bertrand Thomas now says to BT that “we don’t wake up thinking we want to be big – we don’t want to be a big brand, we want to be a great brand”.

Concludes Thomas: “I’m proud of the products. I’m proud of what we stand for as a family-owned company – one of the last few family-owned companies. I’m very proud of what we stand for.

“Revenue, money, profits will be the reward. But it’s absolutely not – it cannot be the goal, it cannot be the obsession... We have a long-term vision, we’re comfortable, and we don’t want to compromise any of that.”